CNY Local Currency Feature for Mainland China-Based Merchants

Introduced in December 2018, a merchant’s Local Currency Code can be found in the Currency Settings section of the Merchant Dashboard Account > Payment Settings page. This FAQ article walks merchants through all necessary information regarding CNY Local Currency Code (to learn more about EUR Local Currency Code, please visit this FAQ article instead).

A merchant’s Local Currency Code may be set in order to reduce the economic risk of fluctuating currencies and simplify the price-setting process for merchants. Currently for Mainland China-based merchants, Wish supports these Local Currency Codes: CNY (¥) and USD ($). Merchants based outside of Europe cannot dispute or manually alter their stores’ Local Currency Code.

Before January 14, 2020 12:00AM UTC, the Local Currency Code was defined based on where the merchant does business. Starting January 14, 2020 12:00AM UTC, the definition of the Local Currency Code is updated to reflect the currency that a merchant is receiving payments in (for example, if at a given time, the merchant is receiving payments in USD, the merchant’s Local Currency Code will be set in USD).

Wish may, in its sole discretion, update the Local Currency Code of merchant stores at any time, and request that merchants provide product prices in a currency consistent with the Local Currency Code; accordingly, merchants will also receive payments in the same currency consistent with the Local Currency Code.

To learn more on how to set localized prices for your new and existing products, check out the links:

Manual:

CSV:

API:

Frequently Asked Questions for China-based merchants:

1. What does the ‘Local Currency’ mean to merchants?

Starting December 10, 2018, merchants have the ability to set localized pricing for their existing and new product listings based on the Local Currency Code in the Currency Settings section of the Merchant Dashboard Account > Payment Settings page.

Before January 14, 2020 12:00AM UTC, the Local Currency Code was defined based on where the merchant does business. Starting January 14, 2020 12:00AM UTC, the definition of the Local Currency Code is updated to reflect the currency that a merchant is receiving payments in (for example, if at a given time after January 14, 2020 12:00AM UTC, the merchant is receiving payments in USD, the merchant’s Local Currency Code will be set in USD).

As of July 2, 2019 12:00AM UTC, some merchants’ accounts will be in CNY, meaning that orders released (i.e. ready for fulfillment) after this time will be paid in CNY. The CNY value is based on the CNY cost of a product as seen on the Merchant Dashboard Products page. Products that did not have the CNY amount set will automatically be converted over as well. The new CNY amount will be converted based on 6.7557 times the existing USD amount (this is the average exchange rate from February 27, 2019 to May 28, 2019).

As of May 29, 2020 12:00AM UTC, more merchants’ accounts will be in CNY, meaning that orders released (i.e. ready for fulfillment) after this time will be paid in CNY. The CNY value is based on the CNY cost of a product as seen on the Merchant Dashboard Products page. Products that did not have the CNY amount set will automatically be converted over as well. The new CNY amount will be converted based on the 60-calendar-day average USD <> CNY exchange rate from March 19, 2020 to May 18, 2020 (i.e. 1 USD = 7.0783 CNY).

As of September 3, 2020 12:00AM UTC, all remaining China-based merchants’ accounts will be in CNY, meaning that orders released (i.e. ready for fulfillment) after this time will be paid in CNY. The CNY value is based on the CNY cost of a product as seen on the Merchant Dashboard Products page. Products that did not have the CNY amount set will automatically be converted over as well. The new CNY amount will be converted based on the 30-calendar-day average USD <> CNY exchange rate from July 26, 2020 to August 25, 2020 (i.e. 1 USD = 6.9575 CNY).

Note that for the above-mentioned merchants, select policy penalties and amounts will also be issued in CNY and may be equal to seven (7) times the USD amount as reflected in each policy. Please see below for detailed penalty amounts in CNY. Merchants and EPRs should be aware of the relevant API changes as well, as noted in detail below.

Again, Wish may, in its sole discretion, update the Local Currency Code of merchant stores at any time, and request that merchants provide product prices in a currency consistent with the Local Currency Code; accordingly, merchants will also receive payments in the same currency consistent with the Local Currency Code.

2. Where do merchants view their current Local Currency Code?

The Local Currency Code can be found in the Currency Settings section of the Merchant Dashboard Account > Payment Settings page.

Merchants may also view their Currency Settings via API, specifically, GET /api/v3/merchant/currency_settings (relevant API documentation here).

3. What are the Local Currencies currently supported?

Currently for merchants based in Mainland China, Wish supports CNY (¥) and USD ($) as the available Local Currency Codes.

Starting January 14, 2020 12:00AM UTC, if a store's Local Currency Code is set to CNY (¥), merchant only needs to provide product and shipping prices in CNY.

If a store's Local Currency Code is set to USD ($), merchant only needs to provide product and shipping prices in USD, and prices in all other localized currencies are optional.

4. Can I edit my store's Local Currency Code on Wish?

Starting January 14, 2020 12:00AM UTC, the definition of the Local Currency Code is updated to reflect the currency that a merchant is receiving payments in, and merchants based outside of Europe cannot dispute or manually alter their stores’ Local Currency Code.

5. Will I be paid in my Local Currency?

As of July 2, 2019 12:00AM UTC, some merchants’ orders released (i.e. ready for fulfillment) after this time are paid in CNY if their Local Currency Code is set as CNY.

Note that for payment disbursements starting September 1, 2019, in the event where merchant accounts have positive USD balance and negative CNY balance, Wish will issue a “consolidation payment” that converts only the necessary USD amount in the merchant accounts to CNY to cover the existing negative CNY balance before disbursing payments to merchants. The conversion rate will be the exchange rate value at 12:00AM Pacific Time on each disbursement date (1st of the month and 15th of the month).

As an example, for September 1, 2019, the conversion rate that Wish uses to convert the necessary USD balance to cover the negative CNY balance in a merchant account will be set based on 1 USD = 7.157 CNY, the exchange rate value on September 1, 2019 12:00AM Pacific Time.

Note that as of May 29, 2020 12:00AM UTC, more merchants’ orders released (i.e. ready for fulfillment) after this time will be paid in CNY if their Local Currency Code is set as CNY.

Lastly, as of September 3, 2020 12:00AM UTC, all remaining China-based merchants’ orders released (i.e. ready for fulfillment) after this time will be paid in CNY as their Local Currency Code is set as CNY.

6. What are some API changes I need to be aware of?

Effective June 20, 2019 12:00AM UTC, the localized_price, localized_shipping, localized_currency_code, localized_cc, and any other price-related fields with “localized_” will be mandatory for merchants that have their Local Currency Code set as CNY (not required for merchants whose Local Currency Code is set as USD).

/product/add

/product/update-shipping

/product/update-multi-shipping

/product/add-variation

/product/update-variation

/variant/add

/variant/update

ERPs are able to use the API endpoint /api/v2/get-currency-code to retrieve the merchant’s localized_currency_code. This API endpoints also returns the parameter: payment_currency_code, which represents the currency at which the merchant will be paid in at this time.

In addition, if merchants’ payment_currency_code = CNY, all price-related fields in the get pathways will return 999999 for the USD values. Please consume localized_ parameters instead.

Some merchants’ Local Currency Code were updated from CNY to USD on January 14, 2020 12:00AM UTC to reflect the payments these merchants are receiving at the time (USD, instead of CNY), based on the updated definition of Local Currency Code (noted in the “What does the ‘Local Currency’ mean to merchants?” Q&A above). As such, immediately after these merchants are notified by Wish of the January 14, 2020 updates made to their Local Currency Code, values in all “localized_” fields become optional for these merchants whose “localized_currency_code” is updated to “USD” on January 14, 2020 12:00AM UTC, regardless of their current “localized_currency_code”.

Starting January 14, 2020 12:00AM UTC, for merchants whose “payment_currency_code” and “localized_currency_code” are both USD, values in all “localized_” fields must be in USD. If merchants provide inconsistent values in “localized_” fields and corresponding non-localized fields (for example, “localized_price” vs. “price”, localized_shipping” vs. “shipping” fields), an error will occur.

Starting July 14, 2020 12:00AM UTC, for merchants whose Local Currency Code is USD, submitting the “/api/v2/variant/update” call utilizing the fields “price = 5.0, localized_price = 5.0, localized_currency_code = CNY” will result in an error message, and the pricing changes will not be saved.

Effective January 25, 2019, the product and order API endpoints related to the new local currency API feature have been changed:

currency_code is now a response to all the following order pathways. Currency_code indicates the currency for all price-related fields for the related order. Currency_code returns need to be appropriately consumed by ERPs/private APIs for accurate records and/or displays of price-related fields for an order.

/order

/order/multi-get

/order/get-fulfill

/ticket

/ticket/get-action-required

For more details about the local currency API changes, merchants and EPRs may visit this API documentation.

7. How does using PayPal impact receiving payments in CNY?

Please note that PayPal does NOT currently support payments in CNY, so merchants cannot use PayPal to receive payments in CNY. PayPal is only available to merchants with Local Currency Code set as USD or EUR, or who receive payments in USD or EUR. If merchants wish to receive payments in CNY but currently use PayPal as a payment provider, they need to update to a different payment provider that supports CNY payments. Merchants can update their payment provider in Account > Payment Settings on their Merchant Dashboard. Payments in CNY will not be disbursed until merchants switch to a different provider other than PayPal.

8. What other fees or amounts will be in CNY?

PB (ProductBoost) fees will also be converted to CNY based on the latest currency exchange rate at the time of when the fees or infractions are created.

Note that PB fees are generated every Monday. The timestamp of when the exchange rate is based on will be displayed on the PB Fee ID Summary page.

Consolidation payments, one-off payments, or one-off infractions will be converted to CNY based on the exchange rate value at 12:00AM Pacific Time on each disbursement date (1st of the month and 15th of the month).

Note that some merchants whose Local Currency Code is CNY are able to manage their ProductBoost campaigns directly in CNY rather than converting from USD. This allows these select merchants to recharge their ProductBoost Balance and create new campaigns in CNY as well. As an ongoing process, we are looking to expand this local currency support for ProductBoost to more merchants with CNY Local Currency Code.

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