NOTICE: We've Moved to a Ticket System for Support
As of August 31, 2017 (12am EST) our support forums will be retired (read-only), and we will be moving to a support ticket system. This will allow us to better organize and answer support requests, and provide a more personalized experience as we assist our customers.
For the time being, we will leave our forums open for reading and learning while we work on creating a more robust Knowledge Base for everyone to use.
If you are a WC Vendors Pro customer please open a support ticket here. If you are a WC Vendors user please open a support ticket on the Wordpress.org forums.
The information on this forum is outdated and in most instances no longer relevant. Please be sure to check our documentation for the most up to date information.
Thank you to all of our customers!
- This topic has 68 replies, 12 voices, and was last updated 6 years, 8 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Hi there,
I have just activated a currency switcher: http://currency-switcher.com/ which is works very well, till the check out.
I have chosen this plugin because it had the option that customers could pay in their selected currency.
The problem is that even if the customers can browse in their own currency when they are at the checkout page they are only able to pay with the site’s default currency such as AUD. (as soon as I activate the plugin’s multiplied currency payment option, there will be an error message clicking on the PAY button, so the payment is not allowed and the transaction is cancelled)I have already contacted the plugin’s developer with this issue but he tested it and said (and proved) thathis plugin is working fine without wcvendors….so: can you please advise me a solution for this issue?
I would really appreciate it!Cheers:
KrisztaHello,
You’d have to fully integrate that plugin with WC Vendors/WC Vendors Pro.
We do not currently have a currency switching plugin that is fully integrated with WC Vendors.Well, I got that already but I think the plugin’s developer will need some info/help from your part…
I have also found Aelia as an alternative option (their currency switcher will be as good as my current one) I have contacted them with the same question ( I mean if their plugin could work with wc vendors or not) here’s their answer:
“Our Currency Switcher doesn’t alter WC Vendors to make it work properly in a multi-currency environment, simply because it can’t “inject” changes in that plugin’s logic to call the currency conversion function (and it shouldn’t, either). It’s up to that plugin, and any other 3rd party plugins, to “talk” to the multi-currency functions and ensure the correct conversion of their prices.We already discussed with the authors of the WC Vendors plugins how to implement full multi-currency support in their product (we are helping developers on a regular basis, for that purpose). We also sent them all the information required to make their product they require for the implementation. Now it’s up to them to add that feature. You might want to check if they made any progress, or if they have an estimated delivery date for that.
It might be possible that WC Vendors already works correctly, to a certain extent, but we haven’t tested it ourselves”
So please let me know how can I or anybody do the job, to fully integrate the plugin with wcvendors?
Cheers@FoltBolt
The mechanics of integrating a currency converter for VENDORS would be a veritable nightmare. The constant updating of accurate currency conversions- it would create a mess.The author of that plugin has given you accurate information. I am sure it is a great plugin, and offering currency conversions for the customers should work well. However, integrating this such that it can convert for vendors is a whole new endeavor- and not practical at all.
It is noted in our feature requests that this is a desired feature- but practically working out the intricacies of such an option has not yet been worked out, so that it is not only feasible but practically applicable for the vendor format as it is in WC Vendors.
I’m the lead developer behind the Aelia Currency Switcher, and I’ve been asked by a customer to reply to this thread.
Implementing multi-currency support might indeed require some effort, but keeping the prices up to date would not be one of WC Vendors’ concern. Our solution takes care of everything related to exchange rates, orders and standard reports, and it provides a very simple API that other plugins can use. Most of the work, for WC Vendors, would come from a user experience perspective. At the very minimum, the plugin would have to do the following:
1. Provide an interface for admins and vendors to enter product prices in multiple currencies (e.g. 100 USD, 100 EUR, 100 GBP). This would have to be done both on frontend and backend.
2. When a product is loaded, ensure that the correct price is taken (the USD, the EUR, the GBP one). If that price is empty, then call the currency conversion functions (one line of code) to determine the price from the base one (e.g. calculate the EUR one from the USD one, if USD is a vendor’s currency).The above is relatively straightforward. Once that is in place, the most important part comes:
3. Keep track of vendors’ commissions, in the currency they want to be paid in. For example:
– Vendor A wants to sell in EUR.
– Vendor B wants to sell in GBP.
– A customer buys one product from A and one from B, and pays in USD.The commission calculator would have to calculate the correct commission for each product, in USD, convert it to the target currency (EUR or GBP) using the API (still the one line of code mentioned at #2) and credit each merchant accordingly.
This is also straightforward, from a technical perspective. There is just a small caveat for the platform owner: he would be paid in USD by the buyer, yet would have to pay vendors in EUR and GBP. Converting currencies attracts fees, which could be as high as 4%. That would have to be taken into account.It might be outside the scope of WC Vendors to handle such fees, but it should be possible to add a setting for each vendor, such as “choose the currency in which you want to be paid. If the currency is not <our base currency>, a currency conversion fee of X% will apply“.
4. Produce reports in the correct currency. Very important, but also relatively simple. It’s a matter of not making a sum of all sales, but grouping them by currency (i.e. not calculate a total like 100 USD + 100 EUR + 100 GBP = 300, but keep each total separate).
This is what came to my mind so far, based on my limited knowledge of WC Vendors, but it should give an idea of the work to be done, and why it might take longer than expected to do it. Supporting multiple currencies is a significant paradigm shift, as it’s no longer possible to assume that “everything is apples”. As we all learn in school, mixing oranges with apples is not a good idea. 🙂
This should also make it clearer why a multi-currency plugin, even as flexible as the one we developed, cannot introduce all those features from the outside. WC Vendors is a fairly complex plugins, and its internal logic needs to be designed with multiple currencies in mind. “Injecting” that logic externally is simply not possible.
The good news is that we will be ready to work with the WC Vendors Team, when the time will come, to make their products fully multi-currency. We helped many developers already, we’ll be happy to provide some guidance through the maze of multiple currencies. 🙂
One more thought about multi-currency support. I got an idea that could cut down development quite a bit.
During vendor registration, WC Vendors could ask what currency should be used for that account (e.g. “in which currency would you like to sell?”). Once set, the currency should not be changed. When a vendor creates a product, he can enter prices exactly as he does now, using the very same interface. The product would also be saved as it happens now.
When the product is loaded on the frontend, for a sale, then the currency conversion takes place. That is, when $product->get_price(), $product->get_regular_price() and $product->get_sale_price() are invoked, their value is passed to the currency conversion function (again, one line of code), specifying vendor’s currency as the base one, and the active currency as the target one.
This would work as follows:
– Vendor A registers as a EUR seller and creates a product priced 100 (EUR).
– Vendor B registers as a GBP seller and creates a product price 100 (GBP).
– Customer adds a product from A, whose price will appear as 100 EUR to USD = 105.97 USD.
– Customer adds a product from B, whose price will appear as 100 GBP to USD = 122.32 USD.
– Customer places the order for 228.29 USD. Vendors get their commission from such amount, which is then converted to their account currency (same function used for the prices) and stored against their balance.This should be quite simpler to implement, as it doesn’t require modifying user interfaces. Of course, reports still have to be extended, and the conversion fees handled, but it would be a significant step ahead in an easier direction. 🙂
@aelia
Thank you- I will discuss this with my team. 🙂Following with happy dances!!!!!
I DESPERATELY need this along with many WCVendors customers! Thank you for adding the link to this post in our other currency related threads @aelia!
It’s been a big worry that I might need to create separate sites for each country where my customers and vendors are based, thank you for giving me and others hope!
I appreciate that something like this will take time but I’m sure @Ben and @DigitalChild would be willing to work with you on this. It would make WCVendors the ONLY multi vendor Woocommerce plug in to overcome the multi currencies issue. Something that will keep coming up as our world gets smaller, making WCVendors THE only multi vendor plug in for international sites.
Option 2 sounds more manageable and also more user friendly for vendors and customers. The perfect solution and exactly what I’d be hoping for.
Special thanks to @FoltBolt for asking @aelia to contribute to this thread 🙂
@fervous please use your very bestest womanly powers when speaking to @DigitalChild and @Ben we need this 🙂THANK YOU!
Karen
Would this proposed plug in work with Stripe. Sales in alternative currency tend to.get much lower fees than paypal from what i have seen.
It is also the gateway i use. Payments are always worked out and sent instantly.
@mattunsworthuk Stripe works just fine with multiple currencies. We have been using it on our own site for years. Actually, I can say that practically every payment method will work with our Aelia Currency Switcher, as our plugin doesn’t interfere with the payment process.
Of course, the payment provider must be able to accept the payments in the currency you send to it. 🙂
Since the multi-currency integration won’t change the main flow of WC Vendors, I reckon that everything will work as it does now. Just more flexible. 🙂
I assume this would also work for sites who aren’t doing commissions? (with my site I charge the vendors a yearly fee and they receive 100% of the sale, I don’t take any commissions)
As I wrote earlier, existing WC Vendors flow would be unaltered. If you charge your vendors a fixed fee, that feature should still work as it does now.
Hi there, we’d all love an update if discussions have started happening between @aelia and @digitalchild 🙂
Thank you!We contacted WC Vendors to see how we can work on this. We don’t have an estimated date yet, we are still in the phase of feasibility study.
Just another user who is very interested in a multi currency feature 🙂 Also came across this – if you want to show which $ currency (e.g. US, AU, NZ etc) across your site.
@geopast Thanks for registering your interest in such important feature. Thanks also for your contribution. With my Currency Switcher that snippet won’t be necessary, as you can set the visible currency symbol as you please (see http://prntscr.com/e8jiuy). 🙂
Multicurrency also Will be very important for wcvendor users in Brazil. We do not have a continental currency and all of our neighbors uses different currencies.
So we will be waiting for this development!
@leosimmer what you describe is the reason why we developed the Currency Switcher. Apart from Europe, the US and the UK, who have the three “main” currencies, everybody else has to adapt to clients who most likely use a different currency. In South America alone there is a dozen of them, and it’s important to be able to accommodate the needs of South American customers.
Quick update
Although there isn’t an official integration for WC Vendors, to support our Aelia Currency Switcher, such feature is still queued. The WC Vendors team is dealing with other high priority tasks, at the moment, and this is going to delay the addition of multi-currency support.Although we don’t have access to the WC Vendors code to implement such feature, we wanted to speed things up a bit. We started experimenting with a possible integration, which would allow WC Vendors to become multi-currency aware, by interacting with our Currency Switcher plugin. Here are some screenshots from the our tests:
- Vendor Dashboard (frontend): http://prntscr.com/en2eo3
- Vendor Dashboard (frontend), after selecting the currency: https://i.snag.gy/94y32A.jpg
- Vendor Dashboard (backend): http://prntscr.com/en2fko
- Vendor Dashboard (backend), after selecting the currency: https://i.snag.gy/nFXAZ2.jpg
- Product Editor: http://prntscr.com/en2jcx. Vendors can set the product price in each currency, and also set product’s base currency, like a “full” shop owner. No matter in which currency the product will be paid, their commission is going to be calculated in their currency of choice.
- Earned commissions (backend): http://prntscr.com/en2hn1. The order in this screenshot was completed and paid in CAD, while commissions are calculated and displayed in vendor’s chosen currency.
This is a very preliminary version of a possible integration. There is still a significant amount of work to do (e.g. commission payments are not handled, and reports don’t take into account the multi-currency aspect). As the saying goes, it’s most likely “the tip of the iceberg”, but it shows that it can be done. 🙂
Thank you very much for the update Diego, this all looks very exciting! I can imagine Jamie has very little time to help at the moment but thank you so much for experimenting with a possible integration 🙂
I love that you’ve added screenshots and the way it works is just how I envisaged it working from an admin and Vendor point of view.
My live site currently does not take any commission from vendors, so it’s possible that I may be able to offer some beta testing (prior to you adding commissions functionality) if needed in the future – however it would be on my live site that has over 200 vendors.
I’m based in the UK so my website currently is in UK Pounds (GBP). Most vendors are in the UK, a handful are in Europe and about 20 in USA.
QUESTION FOR YOU:
For my USA and European vendors who have currently listed their products and shipping costs in UK pounds, will they need to UPDATE all their product and shipping prices after selecting their home currency in the Shop Settings?For example:
A USA Vendor has a product priced at £10 | £1 shipping within their own country | £3 shipping for the rest of the world.
They change their home currency in their shop to US Dollars.
Will the £10 (UK Pounds) product price they previously entered now be $10 (US dollars), along with their shipping costs?I’m assuming it would and to be honest, I want this so desperately, that I would happily update all the vendors product and shipping costs myself! I just wondered if this may cause an issue for other shop owners and their vendors who have existing overseas vendors with lots of shops and products?
Thanks for giving us all hope 🙂
Karen
Also one more thing…
When we activate the future currency plug in, will we need to select the vendor currency for every vendor immediately, or will it assume the vendor is using the site base currency until I or the vendor selects their currency?
Many thanks,
Karen
The details still have to be set, but I would expect the integration to set the currency for all existing vendors to shop’s base currency. As indicated in the screenshots, the currency cannot be changed, because that would cause significant mixups. Vendors that already existed before the multi-currency support is added were selling in shop’s base currency, therefore it makes sense that they are “locked” to that currency.
If some vendors wish to start selling in another currency, they can create a separate profile, and the admin can help migrating the products.
That sounds like a really sensible way to do it. Then current vendors have the choice to be moved to a new account or stay in UK pounds. Their order info obviously won’t be passed over but I can move their products.
I know this is probably a finger in the air answer, but do you have an estimate (or guestimate!) of when this might be ready? New vendors are adding themselves every day to my site, so I’m wondering whether to ask my overseas vendors to wait till we have the currency switcher functionality…
Many thanks,
Karen
@CONSCIOUS-CRAFTIES I’m afraid that I can’t provide a reliable estimate for a delivery of such feature. At the moment, we worked on it by ourselves, as an experiment, but we should just be a “support” element. Much depends on how the WC Vendors team will organise their schedule, which we don’t control, and of which we are not aware.
@diego great work would be interested in the solution as well, let me know if you need any help testing when you get to that point
@MART456 Thanks for your offer. Most likely, we won’t be able to write the integration ourselves (we are here in the role of supporters), but I reckon that the WC Vendors team might appreciate some help with testing. 🙂
We have members of 36 nationalities on our website the multi-currency or currency by vendor is for us one of the key for the viability of our project. We hope to see this functionality available this year.
@axelg Thanks for registering your interest. We will definitely do all that we can to facilitate the implementation of such feature. 🙂
Hi – I am just wondering on the status updates for this. I am considering using WC Vendors along with the Social Marketplace by BuddyBoss. However, an international site is critical for my needs and I cannot use any of this without it. I would need multi-currency on the site in some form or other – could anyone tell me what stage all of this is at?
Are we able to have multi-currency but payment needs to be done in one currency? (This shouldn’t be a problem I imagine as Paypal and Stripe would just convert it on their end/)? Or have we got full support and if not when may that be?
Thanks!
Alex@SAPROTSENKO I spoke with one of the developers of WC Vendors in April. He informed me that they were working on WC Vendors Pro 1.4.x and that, once that major release is stable, they will review the integrations, including the multi-currency one.
Please be aware that I’m the author of the Currency Switcher, but I’m not an official spokesperson from WC Vendors. I can only relay the information I received myself. 🙂
Thanks Diego @aelia, hopefully this will be soon, they didn’t give you any dates I assume?
Just until then, to confirm, there is absolutely no way to have any sort of multi-currency involved, even in a basic form?
Alex
@saprotsenko They didn’t give any delivery date. I guess it’s because WC Vendors Pro was in the middle of development at the time, and they had to focus on it.
At the moment, I’m not aware of a tested way to have multi-currency support in WC Vendors. I wrote the draft of an integration plugin some time ago (see https://www.wcvendors.com/help/topic/currency-switcher/#post-59643), but it was just a proof of concept for the WC Vendors Team, rather than a solution. There is still quite a bit of work to do to complete it.
The integration is heavily dependent on WC Vendors’s logic and, to be reliable, it has to be implemented as WC Vendors -> Multi-currency layer. Our role will be to support the WC Vendors team when the development will start.
Great thanks for the update Diego @aelia!
@FERVOUS, @BEN – would you have any updates on when v1.4x might come out and if you would start working on this at any point? Unfortunately it is a make or break for me so if there is no chance of this being done then I will need to look at other marketplace options.Many thanks,
Alex@saprotsenko
1.4x has been released. Bookings integration completed.
So- this may be something we can look into soon, however I do not know if it will be feasible- at least right away. Without changing the way commission are calculated, I do not know yet if we’ll be able to support a multi-currency environment.It seems that @aelia is very willing to work with us- which is awesome. 🙂
When I know more, I will let everyone know, as I knwo this is something that many users would like to see in WC Vendors.
@FERVOUS You are correct on both accounts:
- Multi-currency support might require some changes in WC Vendors itself, as it’s a matter of having the plugin distinguish between currencies and avoid “mixing apples and oranges”. However, that might not be such a dramatic change, as you will have all the key information you need:
– Amount
– Source currency (from the order)
– Target currency (from vendor’s account)
The conversion requires one line of code, and you will have the vendor’s balance up to date in no time. Of course, you might want to store extra data, such as the original commission (in order’s currency) and the exchange rate applied, so that you can keep track of where each value came from. - Indeed, we have been ready to help with the integration for quite a while. As you might have seen, I prepared a proof of concept myself, based on my very limited knowledge of WC Vendors, to illustrate how a multi-currency setup could operate. However, as I explained to your lead developer, our role would be of support, as the integration might require changes in WC Vendors, that we can’t make.
From our side, “talking” to our plugin is literally a matter of two lines of code (two filter calls, to be precise), and it’s an “implement and forget” integration, as the filters and their behavious won’t change with plugin updates.
If you have any question, please feel free to ask. Thanks. 🙂
Thank you so much @AELIA for being so helpful
Feeling hopeful 🙂
@CONSCIOUS-CRAFTIES You’re welcome. We have been pushing for the support of multi-currency solutions for a couple of years now (we actually started the multi-currency “trend” back in 2013), and we are always happy to help. 🙂
Hi
I am having an issue that is very much related to this topic.
I have used WooCommerce Booster to have products in specific currencies which are only view-able from the country they apply. e.g. products priced in CAD can only be seen in Canada USD US and so on. Each set of products is assigned to Vendor from that country. In our case our agents who are ‘us’ there.Payments using which ever gateway works perfectly well in specified currencies. The only issue is commission payments which always appear in base currency BUT using the numbers of the payment currency.
So if customer in Canada pays $100 CAD and we say commission is 10% the commission appears as £10 GBP our base currency rather than $10 CAD. Can this in anyway be solved?
Haider
Hi
Just to add to the above. It would seem logical to me that the Vendor could be assigned a currency in the same way the product is assigned. Then if they were automatically payed their commission it would be in their currency.Is that possible?
Haider
@SONNETEER assigning a currency to a vendor and handling ommissions correctly is precisely one of the purposes of the integration that is being discussed in this thread. If you (see screenshots in one of my earlier replies), they show an example of the Vendor pages, where each vendor can choose the currency in which they would like to be paid. That was mostly a proof of concept, but it shows the direction in which the integration will go, once WC Vendors is ready.
For clarity, please note that above screenshots were taken from an draft plugin, for integration with our Currency Switcher. The Booster plugin will most likely require a slightly different approach. I don’t know much about that plugin (since it’s a competitor to our solutions, we don’t normally work with it).
@aelia Thank you. I look forward to it and hopefully it solves this.
The fact is, what I have right now is everything else works except the commission which is appearing in the wrong currency. If I pay manually of course this is not such a big issue as I simply use the numbers presented to me and pay. Auto payments is where the issue comes in.
So in some ways the Booster and possibly your solution is already doing a lot of the job.
Haider
@SONNETEER Thanks for your feedback. It’s indeed possible that some aspects of multi-currency support can work out of the box, and that should simplify the development of an integration. However, our scenario doesn’t cover the case in which customers can see all products, and pay for any of them in any of the available currencies. This is the main purpose for which we originally developed the Currency Switcher.
Fo example, one vendor could be selling Product X for 100 EUR, one vendor could sell Product Y for 150 GBP, and the customer might pay for both in USD. This requires the conversion of product prices during the sale process, rather than just the commission calculation, and it’s something that should be taken into account.
Yes understood. Your scenario is different.
I am trying to do the opposite and maintain shops in specific currencies and only viewable locally. The Booster plugin allows this too. In theory it allows both both (and multiple other) possibilities, but I have yet to try. I couldn’t care less which solution I use by the way as long as it works and is reliable.I am no advocate for your competitor, but they do offer quite a range of internal modules on currency alone. I would be interested in anyone who solves this issue.In fact for WC vendor to up it’s game in the global sense a multifaceted solution with a wide number of options, it is probably wise. It clearly can be done. I am guessing just one more switch needs to flicked on the Vendor side.
As an engineer myself I often see a problem as quite complicated to start off with and then with some thought I, more often than not, find the solution is ever so easy. So ref: the above, it looks like most of the work has already been done. Remember, The good borrow, the best steal. 😉
Haider
Not sure if this was covered, but why not assign a ‘Base’ currency to a vendor specifically? Would that then allow payments of commission in their base currency?
haider
@sonneteer that’s exactly the objective, as I wrote in my earlier reply to you: https://www.wcvendors.com/help/topic/currency-switcher/#post-66940
Hi all,
just a thought I had on this. At the end of the day I think having the prices display in someone’s ‘home’ currency is the key, not so much the checkout itself. When it comes to payment, I think most people would not be bothered by by doing a conversion via Paypal or Stripe (example payment will be taken in GBP, with a conversion of XX etc.), especially if they are on the final step. I do this regularly and have no qualms.
Would this simplify the process?
Thanks!
AlexP.S – any updates on the development of this at all?
Thanks, sorry it’s difficult going through everything and an hour is a long time in my life (as measured by events).
Ok so would that solution make commission appear in the Vendor’s base currency? Where now it appears in the website’s base currency.
My current issue is that though the numerical value (for commission specifically) is correct, the currency is not. i.e. $10 is appearing as £10 even though sales to that vendor were in $
haider
- The forum ‘WC Vendors Pro Support’ is closed to new topics and replies.