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> Please, do not try to be smart about these things. There must be some sort of sales benefit to it, otherwise websites wouldn't be doing it. I'm guessing the

> Please, do not try to be smart about these things. There must be some sort of sales benefit to it, otherwise websites wouldn't be doing it. I'm guessing the main advantage is when it gets the currency right, it's easier to buy the product.

kingcharles 5y ago
Not true. I've made i8n features like that in the past for companies where they thought it would be nice and did not put any research, before or after launch, into whether there was any benefit whatsoever. "Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should." -- Dr. Ian Malcolm.
- tentacleuno 5y ago
  > Not true. I've made i8n features like that in the past for companies where they thought it would be nice and did not put any research, before or after launch, into whether there was any benefit whatsoever. That makes sense in a way. Managers tend to implement features nonsensically, as Hacker News constantly reminds me :-) What would be the best compromise in your opinion, then: doing this magic automatically and giving the user an option, asking them up-front, etc. ...?
  - kingcharles 5y ago
    Don't do i8n unless you can afford to pay/hire people who know the cultures that you are adding. You'll hit all sorts of weirdness. And don't argue with the weirdness. I had to translate a site into dozens of languages. Our German staff member translated the text. She would keep writing "e-mail" as "eMail" and I would change it back without her knowledge. Just recently I realized that the capitalization is a German quirk and is expected - it wasn't just a quirk of the translator. I feel bad for "fixing" her work now, simply because I didn't understand.
laurent123456 5y ago
Stripe recommends setting the currency based on the detected country, as that apparently increases conversion.
- easton 5y ago
  Speaking anecdotally, it does. Sometimes (not as much in the past couple years with Adafruit) I’ve been shopping for electronics kits on the internet and would usually bounce when the prices weren’t in USD. Occasionally I’d see the magic switch currency button, but usually it’s 10px wide somewhere I don’t see it.

kingcharles 5y ago

Not true. I've made i8n features like that in the past for companies where they thought it would be nice and did not put any research, before or after launch, into whether there was any benefit whatsoever. "Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should." -- Dr. Ian Malcolm.

tentacleuno 5y ago
> Not true. I've made i8n features like that in the past for companies where they thought it would be nice and did not put any research, before or after launch, into whether there was any benefit whatsoever. That makes sense in a way. Managers tend to implement features nonsensically, as Hacker News constantly reminds me :-) What would be the best compromise in your opinion, then: doing this magic automatically and giving the user an option, asking them up-front, etc. ...?
- kingcharles 5y ago
  Don't do i8n unless you can afford to pay/hire people who know the cultures that you are adding. You'll hit all sorts of weirdness. And don't argue with the weirdness. I had to translate a site into dozens of languages. Our German staff member translated the text. She would keep writing "e-mail" as "eMail" and I would change it back without her knowledge. Just recently I realized that the capitalization is a German quirk and is expected - it wasn't just a quirk of the translator. I feel bad for "fixing" her work now, simply because I didn't understand.

laurent123456 5y ago

Stripe recommends setting the currency based on the detected country, as that apparently increases conversion.

easton 5y ago
Speaking anecdotally, it does. Sometimes (not as much in the past couple years with Adafruit) I’ve been shopping for electronics kits on the internet and would usually bounce when the prices weren’t in USD. Occasionally I’d see the magic switch currency button, but usually it’s 10px wide somewhere I don’t see it.