USD or CAD - Your opinions

Hi,
My company is basically US based. All the servers and services are in the US. However, I myself am located in Canada. My business takes USD, the only reason I chose USD is because it appeared to be easier to manage plus my server fees are in USD.
If I took CAD instead, especially with the exchange rate the way it is, would that count as a advantage on other US based hosting companies? Would it be an insult to those who think they have issues with Canadians?
What do you guys think I should do? Stay with USD, or switch to CAD?
I would greatly appreciate your opinions on this matter.
Thank you.





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Stay with USD. Makes it more easy to compare with other hosts. Plus, as you said, as your costs are in USD, you won't have a terrible time if something goes wrong with the CAD exchange rate, and you are left paying more in USD then what the CAD is worth.
Jay





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I too would suggest USD. That lets people comparison shop quite a bit easier, rather than taking you out of the running because they don't want to try to convert the currency in their head.
-mike





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My previous employer works with USD but the office and DC was based in Canada. Worked out fine until the USD dropped below the Canadian dollar a while back. Suddenly we weren't making so much





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I would also recommend to continue to use USD, because a lot of people pay it and since you're based in the US.
All the best,

USD is better since it makes easier for customers to compare with other offerings.





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I would stay with USD as it would make things less complicated. Most of your payments are dealt with in USD so it would be recommended to stay with it. Plus, if you constantly exchange the currency back and forth, it can become quite confusing.





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Thank you for the replies. I think I'll stick with USD for now.





__________________WittWorth Web Solutionshttp://www.wittworth.com
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Probably a little late but if you are targeting the Canadian market, charging in USD funds can be quite discouraging to a Canadian. The value of the dollar has been changing significantly as of late, which means that every month the price after exchange is considerably different than the last.
Of course, if your business plan dictates that you are primarily focused on an American market, than pricing in US funds could be of your advantage.

Quote:



Originally Posted by Adam-AEC


Probably a little late but if you are targeting the Canadian market, charging in USD funds can be quite discouraging to a Canadian. The value of the dollar has been changing significantly as of late, which means that every month the price after exchange is considerably different than the last.
Of course, if your business plan dictates that you are primarily focused on an American market, than pricing in US funds could be of your advantage.


I went through the same thing when I launched a few years ago, I couldn't decide if I should charge USD or CAD. I decided I was going to target my local market which is in Canada so I decided to charge CAD. I built in a little extra to my prices to help with the exchange rate, but on things like domain names that are already low margin I get hammered everytime the dollar drops. I need to increase my prices ago since the dollar is dropping again.
I would say it depends on who you are targetting, if it basically anywhere then stick with USD, can you bill in both currencies because that could be a good option?

We've seen a few cases of companies offering to accept both currencies (ie. iWeb).
Although this seems like a good idea in practice, I've seen that a few people had an issue when the value of the CAD$ increased, but the prices posted on the website were unchanged.
I don't know the feelings of Americans, but when they exchange their currency over (at the current rate), they will receive more CAD$ for their USD$. This of course, is to their advantage, and might be a selling point for your business (as how Canadian retailers close to the border do).
You are definitely right on slim-margin products priced in USD$. The fluctuations could probably put you into the negative in regards to your Profit Margin.

The market is a USD market, unless you really want to focus on the canadian market, it will be hard to compete if you do not bill in USD. Stay in USD but keep in mind that if your revenues are in USD, your expenses should also be in USD in order to lower the risk of changes in currency values.
Quote:


We've seen a few cases of companies offering to accept both currencies (ie. iWeb). Although this seems like a good idea in practice, I've seen that a few people had an issue when the value of the CAD$ increased, but the prices posted on the website were unchanged.


It's a problem. We are working on trying to find solutions for this. One good solution could probably be to bill in USD but let the user pay in CAD if he wants at the current exchange rate as paypal does or other systems do.
Regards,





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