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When half your customers are American, a few things on the site change, and none of them is the design. Every price gets its currency written beside it, as in "$95 CAD". The contact form takes a Buffalo ZIP code and a New York address as easily as a Fort Erie postal code. The area you serve is written as town names, Fort Erie and Ridgeway on this side, Buffalo and Amherst on that side, never "Niagara" on its own. And the page says plainly what happens at the border: you ship to US addresses, you don't, or it's pickup only. The rest of the build, the same few pages any small business site needs, stays as it was.
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Think about how you give somebody directions to your house. To a neighbour you say "the blue one past the church" and that's plenty. To somebody driving in from Rochester you have to say the street, the town, and which exit off the highway, because every shortcut you'd leave out is exactly the piece they don't have.
A website for a business that sells on both sides of the border is directions for somebody from out of town. Everything a single-country site gets to leave implied has to be said out loud, because an assumption that's correct for your customer in Fort Erie is wrong for your customer in Buffalo, every time.
Say which dollars you mean
A price that reads "$95" leaves an American visitor guessing which dollar you mean, and the guess they make is whichever one makes them feel worse about it.
Write the currency beside the number. "$95 CAD" costs you four characters and settles it. If you want to show both, show both, and say plainly which one the card is actually charged in and that the other figure moves with the exchange rate. Something like "$95 CAD, with the U.S. price shown at checkout" tells a Buffalo customer exactly what will happen before they get there.
What I would skip is the clever version, where the site guesses your visitor's country and silently swaps the currency. The guess comes from the visitor's internet connection, and a phone on a data plan or a laptop on an office network can be placed on the wrong side of the river. Worse, it means the number on the screen can differ from the number you quoted somebody on the phone an hour earlier. Then you're explaining your own website to a customer, which is the opposite of what the thing is for.
Build the contact form for two countries
A cross-border site can fail right here without the owner ever seeing it, because the form works fine when you test it from your own kitchen in Stevensville.
The usual culprit is the box where a customer types their postal or ZIP code. If that box insists on the Canadian shape, A1A 1A1, it will refuse 14201 outright, and the person in Buffalo doesn't email you to report a bug. They close the tab and call somebody else. Either let the box accept both shapes or stop requiring it at all. If a name and a way to reply are all you need, drop the requirement. An optional box refuses nobody.
The list a customer picks their province from is the same trap wearing a different hat. If it holds the ten provinces and three territories and nothing else, you've told an American customer that this form wasn't built with them in mind. That is a strange thing to say on a page you built specifically to get their business. Add the fifty states to the list, or swap the list for a plain text box labelled "Province or state".
Phone numbers are the easy one, because Canada and the United States share the +1 country code and the same ten-digit system, so nothing needs converting. Make your number a tap-to-call link (the kind that opens the phone app when someone taps it) and include the country code, +1 905 682 4642, so a tap from a US phone connects.
Hours are easier still, since Ontario and New York are both on Eastern time. Say so on the page anyway; it's one sentence and it removes a hesitation you'll never otherwise hear about.
| Element | Canadian customer | US customer | What to write |
|---|---|---|---|
| Currency | Prices in Canadian dollars | A bare $95 reads as a guess | "$95 CAD" beside the number |
| Postal or ZIP code box | A1A 1A1 | 14201 | Accept both shapes, or don't require the box |
| Province or state list | Their province | Their state | Include the fifty US states as well as the thirteen Canadian entries |
| Phone | Same ten-digit system | Same ten-digit system | A tap-to-call link with the country code: +1 905 682 4642 |
Say where you go, in town names
"We serve Niagara" is one of the least useful sentences a Niagara business can write, because there are two Niagaras. There's Niagara Falls, Ontario and Niagara Falls, New York. There's the Niagara Region on this side and Niagara County on that one. A person reading your page can't tell which you mean, and a search engine has the same problem.
Name the towns instead. Fort Erie, Ridgeway, Crystal Beach, Welland, Port Colborne on this side. Buffalo, Amherst, Cheektowaga, Tonawanda, Niagara Falls NY on that one. Then say what actually happens at the border for your business, whichever way the answer goes. You ship to US addresses, or you don't, or it's pickup only and American customers cross the Peace Bridge to collect. All three are fine answers. Leaving it unstated is the only bad one, because a customer weighing a drive over the bridge wants that answer before they leave the house.
An optional box refuses nobody.
The ten-minute check before launch
The cross-border check. Open your own site on a phone and go through it as somebody in Amherst would. Every line below is a yes or a no, and a no is a customer you never hear from.
- Every price on the site has a currency written beside it.
- The postal code box accepts 14201, or isn't required.
- The province list includes New York, or the box is plain text.
- The phone number is a tap-to-call link and starts with +1.
- The area you serve is written as town names on both sides of the river.
- The page says, in one sentence, whether you ship to the US, don't, or do pickup only.
- If pickup: where to park, which door, and whether a US card works.
- The hours say Eastern time.
Run it again whenever somebody changes the site.
Where the web design part stops
Sales tax, duty, cross-border shipping rules, whether you're licensed to do your work in New York: none of that is web design, and I won't pretend otherwise on a first call. Your accountant and your lawyer answer those. Ask them before the site goes live rather than after, because the answers change what your pages should say. A shipping page that promises delivery to Buffalo is a promise your customs broker has to keep.
Here are the questions to bring so the meeting is short. I don't answer them; I need the answers before I write the shipping page.
- When a customer in New York buys from me, do I charge them sales tax, and if so which one?
- When I ship a parcel over the Peace Bridge, who pays the duty and the brokerage fee, and should that be shown at checkout or on the invoice?
- Am I allowed to do my trade at a customer's home or business in New York, and does my insurance cover me there?
- Which currency should my invoices, deposits and receipts be in?
Once you have those four answers in writing, the site can say each one clearly, in the place a customer looks for it.
Selling to customers on both sides of the river? Tell me where they are and I'll quote a site that handles both, with the price in writing first. Get a fixed-price quote
Common questions
Should I show prices in both Canadian and US dollars?
If you show a second figure, label it as approximate and expect to update it, because the exchange rate moves and a stale US price on the page is a small argument waiting at the counter. The same goes for a US figure you type into an email or a quote: put the date beside it. One labelled real price and a plain line about what the card is charged in does less work for you and causes fewer of those arguments.
Do I need a US phone number?
No. A 905 or 289 number dials fine from Buffalo. What you can't control is whether the call costs your customer anything, because that depends on their phone plan, not yours. Offer an email address and a form as well, so a customer who would rather not pay for the call still has a way to reach you.
Do I need a .com and a .ca?
One address is enough. If you already own both, have one send visitors to the other so a customer who types either lands on the same site. The ending matters less than whether the pages name the towns you serve on both sides. If you're only buying one, pick the one customers already say out loud.
Should I build a separate site for American customers?
Not for a small business. One site that labels its currency, accepts both address shapes, names the towns and states its border policy does the job. Two sites means paying for two builds and keeping both current. The cost guide shows what one build runs.
Send the address of your current site to hello@niagarawebdesigner.com or call [905.682.4642](tel:+19056824642), and I'll go through it the way somebody in Amherst would and tell you which of the eight lines above it misses. If the answer turns out to be a new build, the Buffalo page says what one costs from this side of the bridge.