Pricing Survey

[Murray]

Hi Everyone,

We're in the process of implementing our own order processing system, and as we are based in Australia, the easiest solution involves charging our customers in Australian Dollars rather than the current U.S. Dollars. This would also be significantly cheaper than our current order processing system, meaning more funds for development from the same number of sales.

Switching to a price in AUD would also help to stabilize the amount we make from each purchase. Over the last eight years, the amount we make from each $24.95 USD sale has gone from a high of $51.49 AUD down to $29.84 AUD, which obviously makes things difficult.

A demonstration of how the new pricing would be displayed is available at:

(demonstration no longer online, URL removed)

We would very much like your feedback on how this change would affect your purchasing decision, if at all, either through the poll options above or by adding a reply to this post.

Thanks as always.


Yours sincerely,

Murray Hurps

[jonspencerbx]

Why should it matter which currency is used? It still costs more or less the same in Euro's.

[pato]

Hi,

I just checked your demo page which right lists the right currency (Swiss Francs in my case)!
This is really nice and will make the decission easy!
Most important, I don't need to search a bank first to get the price calculation. With your new shop it's easy and good to use.

pato

[Murray]

That's what we're hoping, but the majority of our customers are in the U.S. (about 70%) so this may affect them.

Regarding sales outside the U.S though, I did a quick check into how much the price would have varied over the last eight years in GBP, CAD and EUR if the price were in AUD, and suprisingly the price would have fluctuated by 35% less if the price were in AUD instead of USD (based on maximum/minimum price difference).

So indeed, not only should this not affect non-U.S. customers, but it is likely to be beneficial.

[Murray]

Thanks pato The new system has had some work put in to making it as easy to use as possible. When ordering by phone and fax for example it will generate the appropriate international dialing rules for your country (which is auto-detected based on your IP), and will display the appropriate time to call in your local timezone. It should be a neat little system

[Knogle]

Have voted that it wouldn't really affect my decision. With that said, other than listing the amount in the customer's local currency, you should also list it in USD for convenience purposes. Most of the internet and online services still use the $ for transaction purposes, and it would be a good reference to have. For example when I do my online shopping, I price and budget everything in US $, despite not actually using that currency where I live.

[prazim]

Hi,
I would encourage you to implement a shopping cart that enables people to toggle the various predominant worldwide currencies. Such tools are pretty routine at this point.

Ad Muncher is an outstanding program and I would most likely purchase it anyway, but presenting the currency to me in one which is not my own, from a marketing perspective, is less user friendly.

It's asking me to meet you where you are at, rather than the other way around...

Sue

[TrunksVegita]

The main focus if for nothing else...

"This would also be significantly cheaper than our current order processing system, meaning more funds for development from the same number of sales. "

I've tried every single popup blocker listed @...

TopT3nR3vi3ws.com
(You know to replace the "3" with the letter "e".)

...and by FAR-FAR...the one is the absolute FINEST of all of them.

This won't affect anything in terms of my decision of supporting this VERY FINE product.

Keep'em rollin' guys!

Very impressed customer.

^_^

[GHammer]

Doesn't make a difference as long as the exchange rates don't fluctuate too badly. The fact that my friend paid US$2 less than me isn't gonna bother me at all. That they paid US$15 less would.

Once you cross the US$40 line I think you are going to begin to lose sales.

The worked fine for me, showed me in RMB what the cost would be.
I don't think showing the price in USD as well is needed. Most who would be interested in know AU, local, and USD know their USD exchange rate in round numbers.

[greenhatch]

Frankly my worst worry is that you guys might lose money and might have to consider selling up to a big corporation. I don't care what currency any future invoices are charged in: Ad Muncher is my top security based program!

[Scott]

The poll is asking the wrong question. The matter isn't so much whether someone would mind buying Ad Muncher in a price structured around AUD versus USD, it's how much they would be willing to spend on it, in their currency.

You say that 70% of your customer base is in the US. You want to switch to AUD to make more profit. But in order to realize any gains, you'll have to charge US customers more, with respect to the value of USD, which is what matters to them.

So, the question is essentially how much you can charge US customers, based on the AUD/USD exchange rate, and make more profit than you do now. This is a tough question.

A separate issue has to do with how customers feel about seeing unfamiliar currencies. Users in the US are very used to seeing everything in USD. I personally don't mind too much buying something based in another currency, but I really appreciate it when the exchange value is made readily available.

[ybnice]

I am used to purchasing Programs using the US dollars even though I am Australian - neither here nor there, mind you proud as punch that this awesome program is Australian. Using Aussie dollar would be great for me and really shows that this is down under.

[VicW]

As an existing happy Admuncher customer, with full confidence in the great value of the product and confidence in your integrity, I wouldn't have any problem with it, but I think some potential new customers may be a tad apprehensive about it, especially considering that the program name is not widely known, and some of them might pull back from it after seeing the reference to foreign (to us) currency.

While the vast majority of us in the US love Australia, and the Aussies, I think there is a common fear that International financial transactions are more subject to fraud or abuse, especially where we are exposing a credit card number.

[Murray]

Thank you everyone for taking the time to participate in the poll and/or post a reply. A few specific replies:

Knogle:

Thanks very much, out of interest, would the option (shown on the demo page above) to display in USD be sufficient for your purposes?


Prazim:

Indeed the price will be shown in the customer's local currency (or at least a close approximation), as shown on the demo page above. Is this sufficient, or do you think that even mentioning AUD is a bad thing?


TrunksVegita:

Thanks very much


GHammer:

Excellent, thanks.


greenhatch:

My worst worry too. Thanks to your continued support over the years though this definitely won't happen any time soon.


Scott:

I may not have explained adequately, but the main reason for switching to AUD is so that we can process payments ourselves, rather than using a reseller based in the U.S. This would reduce our processing fees from 8% to about 2.8%, so we would make an extra $1.30 USD for each purchase, without charging a cent more.

And indeed the issue of U.S. customers being less comfortable with a foreign currency seems to be the primary concern at the moment, I'm just hoping that more U.S. customers are as open minded as yourself...


ybnice:

Similar to Knogle above, would having the option to display the prices in USD for comparison be sufficient? or would it need to be displayed in AUD and USD all the time? And hello from Dural, NSW


VicW:

Good point, perhaps we could provide the option to purchase from the U.S. reseller (that we are currently using) if the customer is concerned about purchasing from Australia. Definitely possible. If this is something that anyone here would use, or anyone they know, please post in the replies to let me know it would be worth doing.

[WCStoll]

Living in the US and already having purchased a license for 3 simultaneous valid copies of admuncher that are legal for all 4.x versions - I obviously don't need to worry about this yet. However, as long as there is no hardship in determining the difference between the currencies and being able to pay for it with a credit card... it really doesn't matter to me what kind of currency it is when it gets to the other bank. All that matters is that I know how much I need to pay and that I can pay for it in the form (credit card) available to me.