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Feinder -> RE: Store pricing & foreign currencies (6/23/2004 3:53:21 PM)
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It's usually about taxes, and currency conversion.
1. Setting a base price (no taxes included) allows the seller to collect tax as necessary. For example, if you are a business here in the States that does mail order, but actually have a selling location in California, you must collect sales tax to any shipto in California (but no other states). I am familiar with the VAT tax in the UK, and also the GST/PST in Canada. There are also often taxes on the amount of postage being charged (and postage taxes can even be levied by individual counties). The way you get around this taxing nightmare (of how much to charge or refund), is there are plenty of Tax programs, that are essentially a database of what taxes apply where (and is updated normally monthly). So the seller simply punches in the zip/postal code of the destination, and he knows how much in taxes to collect.
2. Foreign currencies - It's kind of a pain to do conversions. Most banks don't do it (altho there are usually a few in every large US city). They probably have a broker of sorts that has appropriate accounts in say, the UK, that takes in the native currency, and then pays Matrix in lump sum (in USD) for the value of the sales. Also currency coversion can actually be very fluid. The markets change ever day. So one USD might equal 8 FFrancs on Monday, and 7 FFrancs on Tuesday. In countries with more stable economies (like France), the fluctuations don't happen as dramatically (normally), but they -can- happen. So if the price was -only- in USD, you could actually buy the game cheaper depending on the currency conversion of the day. That makes for an accounting nightmare (again, esp for returns). So a seller will usually set a price per country in the native denomination. That way, the consumer isn't paying 62.0301 Euros (75 USD) for the game. It's a lot easier to simply set the price at 65 Eurors (or whatever).
-F-
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