Price?

[goodwoodrw]

Pirate jock, I've just checked the Slitherine site their price is around $AUD40.49 or so marginally cheaper than the Matrix price yesterday,checking several online sources for the current exchange rate the $AUD is still above parity. perhaps I need to go back to school and do a refresher on my maths skills. Incidentally I have recently purchased a game for Paradox there exchange rate was somewhat more favourable. Yes the purchase price was quoted in Euros and $US

[goodwoodrw]

I am seeing things or has the AUD $ crashed 14 cents in the past 2 days?

[Moltke71]

ORIGINAL: BASB

I am seeing things or has the AUD $ crashed 14 cents in the past 2 days?

Yeah, when Rupert gets hit, OZ cringes. [:D]

[Lord Zimoa]

It is a tax penalty to all Down-Under residents as you once created "Neighbours"! LOL

Cheers,

Tim aka LZ

[Erik Rutins]

Hi guys,

Ok, after a few conversations with the store, we have it all figured out.

Basically, there are three components to converting the USD price to other currencies.

1. Direct conversion using daily exchange rate
2. Currency exchange fee added
3. Price rounded to .99

#2 is the key culprit as to why the AUD price, for example, was showing up about $2 more than expected. This is a pass-through fee which our store is charged by the banks to exchange the currency back to USD. You can also purchase from our store in USD, but then you would be charged a similar currency conversion fee by your bank, so you really can't escape this one, short of showing up at our office and paying cash. [8D]

#3 is a minor additional part of this. We've always rounded our prices to .99 as a business practice. Typically that's responsible for a very small amount of the difference from the exchange rate, but it does contribute. The vast majority of the difference is the conversion fee.

That's basically it. So we are using the real daily currency exchange rates, but the additional currency conversion fee and the rounding end up adding a couple of dollars to the total price.

Regards,

- Erik

[goodwoodrw]

The rounding up or down seems fine if applied both ways, however this bank fee thingy is a double dip I think, I may be wrong, this fee is charged to the card holder. I have never been charge this fee by a merchant in all my days of purchasing over the net, this appears to be a Pilmus add on for profit. My most recent purchase of a game was PON at GG the going price was $US20 to rate 1.06 Credit card debit was 18.85 plus .47 International exchange charge. Charged by my bank not the merchant. It appears Pimlus uses calculations to other online merchants. This issue is not about money, but the principle of the issue.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: BASB
The rounding up or down seems fine if applied both ways, however this bank fee thingy is a double dip I think, I may be wrong, this fee is charged to the card holder. I have never been charge this fee by a merchant in all my days of purchasing over the net, this appears to be a Pilmus add on for profit. My most recent purchase of a game was PON at GG the going price was $US20 to rate 1.06 Credit card debit was 18.85 plus .47 International exchange charge. Charged by my bank not the merchant. It appears Pimlus uses calculations to other online merchants. This issue is not about money, but the principle of the issue.

According to Plimus, this is a pass through cost. By doing this, you are actually charged in AUD and thus there should be no extra charge by your card, your bank or anyone.

Have you seen an extra charge when purchasing through our store in AUD?

With that said, you can still change the currency to USD in our store and pay the USD price allowing your card or bank to take care of the conversion fee if you prefer.

Regards,

- Erik

[mariandavid]

This is a little disturbing - and surprising as never came across it with any of my (far too many as far as wife is concerned) Matrix purchases. Right now the Matrix CAD price is 41.99 which convertes to 43.91 US$ in conversion!. And just to ensure that this is not the usual 'made' a purchase using PayPal to check process -which converted to 42.55$C and that AFTER the Paypal charge.

Hate this kind of thing - stops me from buying what is obviously a magnificent game - I suppose out of infantile petulance!

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: mariandavid
This is a little disturbing - and surprising as never came across it with any of my (far too many as far as wife is concerned) Matrix purchases. Right now the Matrix CAD price is 41.99 which convertes to 43.91 US$ in conversion!. And just to ensure that this is not the usual 'made' a purchase using PayPal to check process -which converted to 42.55$C and that AFTER the Paypal charge.

Hate this kind of thing - stops me from buying what is obviously a magnificent game - I suppose out of infantile petulance!

Knowing that this is a pass through currency conversion cost and that you can order in USD and have your bank charge you that fee instead, I'm not sure why it would stop you at this point? Unfortunately, there is no way to exchange currencies and do commerce globally without paying these fees.

Regards,

- Erik

[Toby42]

When I was buying prescription drugs through a Canadian company, I was charged a currency exchange fee. Nothing new here! I would expect the same thing with a game purcase....

[mariandavid]

Erik - you miss the point - what I was quoting was the 'pass-through' charge by another format. Your customary cost currency calculation is suddenly off - and that is what we are complaining about. The conversion charge, assuming that calculations are correct converts into a 4.75% currency conversion charge - those for elsewhere (not giving names) are about 1.25% - so someone (not you I know) is doing rather well out of this.

Not that it matters - after a token display of petulance I will buy very soon anyway, but others might be more permanently put off.

Oh - and I am unable to order in $US or us my $US account as your server blocks any attempt to transfer from Can$ when I am paying through a Canadian based credit card account.

[Adam Parker]

Guys - this is for the Aussies too.

1. I got charged $39.99 AUD by Plimus at the Matrix Store on Day 1 (when I bought the game).

2. If you're going on holidays to the US and you want some Greenbacks, even though the current exchange rate is say, $100 AUD = $1.07 USD, you're not going to get $107 US dollars when you give your bank $100 Aussies to exchange. You're most likely going to get $103.

Why? The banks are ripping us and everyone else off with swap fees as Erik explained [:)]

The solution to the above (ie: buying Matrix Games) is as Erik says, shop at the US store and let your LOCAL bank charge you the swap fee when you get your card statement. Just like shopping at good 'ol Amazon.

Now, if Plimus is charging a swap fee at the Aussie store AND your local bank does so too when the transaction goes through, then we're getting ripped off. I'll try to keep an eye on this for you Erik and email you if so.

[milkweg]

I can pay in Indian Rupees even if I want?

[font="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"]1,901.99 INR

How about Zambia Kwacha?

[/font][font="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"]197,354.00 ZMK[/font]

[goodwoodrw]

In Oz I believe its offence for the merchant to charge a conversion fee, I don't believe Pilmus should charging it either, DR didn't GG doesn't and all other Internet companies I have recently purchased products with haven't, my bank has charged me a small fee, but you would expect that. I have purchased 22 games since 2004 all but one when the Oz dollar was on the negative side of the UD buck. I always dreamed the day our dollar would be better than the USD Now the grass is greener, I'm still eating dry hay, Sorry Erik if this policy persists the tally will stay at 22. The couple of bucks isn't the issue, its the principle1
Ron Watterson

[IainMcNeil]

As far as we understand you are being charged the correct amount. You are going to be charged the currency conversion fee one way or the other - it either appears as a curerncy conversion on your bank/credit card statement or it appears at this point in Plimus. It wont appear twice and where it is added should not effect the overall amount. I think its just that normally you would not even be aware of the extra charge until you received your statement so you are just getting the info up front.

[mariandavid]

OK - I accept what Ian and Erik are saying. So I will buy the game using the Matrix system (ie nominated in Can$) and then work out with the aid of my bank exactly what it cost me. And it I was wrong - I will add my plaintive and rambling apologies to this set. If right will contact Erik personally to avoid any more diversions from the discussion of what is obviously a brilliant game (from the comments it seems to play like a very adult and intelligent version of Civ 5!)

[DasTactic]

I'm also an Australian and get peeved by these sort of issues. As an experiment I tried two things:

Purchase via PayPal using US pricing (Final PayPal cost is AUD$38.27)
Purchase via PayPal using AUS pricing (Final PayPal cost is AUD$39.99) 4.5% more for the same thing.

Something still isn't right Erik.

[Erik Rutins]

Hi guys,

Ok, I went back to the store and went over this in more detail.

If you view e-commerce platforms like Clickbank (which today is at a 6% conversion fee for AUD), eSellerate (which is at an 11% conversion fee for AUD) or RegNow (which today is also at 6% for AUD) you can see that our rates are standard, if not lower than many competitors.

Also, part of the reason for the fee is to take into account currency fluctuations as our exchange rate is updated on a daily basis, but there are parts of the whole financial system where there can be asynchronicities. I'm convinced that what we're charging is a pass-through from the Plimus store and that it's basically a wash for them.

I don't know why PayPal charged you less, perhaps their system is more advanced and is doing the conversions and transferring the money around instantaneously, whereas we are paid on the daily rate, but the money does not necessarily arrive and get converted instantly. As they are specifically a money transfer business, they may have some additional efficiencies in this regard.

Also, since the rates are udated on a daily basis, it's important to keep in mind that you can't compare today's rates with rates at a past date.

Regards,

- Erik

[DasTactic]

I know the rates change day by day, but the AUD has not deviated 5% in the last few months - and it certainly hasn't gone down much in that period.

Merchant accounts do tend to charge a lot more than PayPal does for handling money so I guess the best option for non-US purchasers is to select US$ in the Matrix Cart and then process the transaction via PayPal where they give you close to the correct exchange rate.

[goodwoodrw]

Feel free to call me a bitching downunderer, just hat yo add my last $3.50  worth.  Erik excepting your explanation the merchant can charge the currency conversion fee, comparing this cost with my most recent bank charge for PC game,  percentage wise there is about 8% difference between the 2 purchases. My bank charged me around 2% of the total cost and Pilmus on current exchange rates wants to charge me 10%. Depending on currency fluctuations this could add $1.50 to 3.50 to every foreign transaction, nice amount cream!
Your business Erik you choose to run it the way you see fit, but in my mindset as much as I would like to buy PC I won't under the current pricing policy.
Ron