Currency exchange rates are way off

My default currency is Canadian dollars and when I use the drop-down menu to check the prices in US or other, the exchange rate is about 7% higher than when I convert the figures on xe.com.

I've read other posts about currencies, double-checked my settings, used the update feature in Admin-Localization-Currencies...and still see the issue. This two year-old post, while talking about an issue with PayPal, suggested manually changing the values of the exchange rates. I did that for now, but won't they keep changing to the higher/false rates automatically?

I'm using 1.39g. PayPal Express is my only processor and it's set to accept only Canadian dollars. avenue-r.com

Cheers,

R

Have you seen the currency offset value configuration in:

Admin >>> Configuration >>> My Store...

Third from the bottom: Currency Conversion Ratio

The default is to add 5% to the values held in the currency fields.

Currency Conversion Ratio
When auto-updating currencies, what "uplift" ratio should be used to calculate the exchange rate used by your store?
ie: the bank rate is obtained from the currency-exchange servers; how much extra do you want to charge in order to make up the difference between the bank rate and the consumer rate?

Default: 1.05
This will cause the published bank rate to be multiplied by 1.05 to set the currency rates in your store.

You need to keep in mind that the rates quoted through the exchange services are "wholesale" rates and that you would have fees for doing actual exchanges. Probably better to have someone think they were paying a bit more and get surprised when it costs less in the end.

Thanks, s and K. I hadn't noticed that option.

I changed it to 1.0 and it's much closer to the website exchange rate, though still a fraction higher. More importantly, it's now quite close to the rate from PayPal when I did a test purchase.

Funny thing is, 1.1, .99 and other values did not change the prices by a penny. I played around because my concern is with the high-value items where + 1-2% is more noticeable. I'd rather people see a lower price on the site and then it be slightly higher when they checkout with PayPal; people will understand the issue and likely complete the sale. The other way, they may look elsewhere after seeing my prices.

R

For future readers of this thread, I ask a related question here-
http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=179783.