Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce website or making goods and services available for sale to an online customer base? If so, then you should probably consider providing your prospects with currency conversion.
Currency conversion tools allow your prospects to have the cost of an international currency amount converted to their home currency when purchasing or checking out products online. It also lets your customers see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their local currency.
One great advantage of adding currency conversion is that it allows visitors to see and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own local currency, making it it easier for customers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is built with WordPress, you can add currency conversion using a plugin to currency conversion to WordPress using a plugin, allowing your customers to quickly determine the cost of your products.
WP Free Currency Converter – Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a unique converter tooltip. It’s also free!
This plugin includes advanced features like:
- In-line converter
- Supports various exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates & European Central Bank
- Supports Shortcodes
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with various e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce & Shopp.
- Automatic local currency detection
- Full translation support
Note: The Currencyr plugin requires PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP. Ask your webhosting provider to upgrade your PHP server installation if necessary.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WordPress dashboard by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking “Install Now” …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can access the plugin’s settings area by selecting Currencyr from your admin navigation menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings area …
For example, you can choose a base currency from the Base Currency drop-down menu if you want something other than the default option ’US Dollar’ …
Similarly, you can specify a data provider from a dropdown menu. The default option is Yahoo Finance, but you can select another option, like European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose Open Exchange Rates as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) will be required …
You can choose how frequently you would like to update the currency exchange rates by selecting an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (e.g. WP plugins).
Unless you have a reason to modify the jQuery settings, leave them as they are …
Configure the remainder of the plugin settings and remember to click ‘Save Changes’ when done …
After your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily add currency conversion to any WordPress page using widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, ZAR, etc …) in this plugin.
Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into pages, posts and widgets with no coding knowledge or skills using shortcodes.
Below are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to posts and pages:
Let’s say that you sell goods for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show this conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your page.
To display this information, you will need to add the shortcode below to your page content …
Note: You can also display pricing in dollars and cents (for example, 155.25, 22.00, 149.00, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how your shortcode looks after being added to a product page …
After the content has been published, your currency conversion will display as seen below …
Using this example, let’s now convert the same price into multiple currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (you can add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode looks when inserted into a page …
Once your information has been published, the currency conversion will then appear as you can see in the example below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol within this plugin.
Now, let’s say that you would like to specify a different base currency than the one set as your default.
For example, if you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to customers from countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
Here’s how the shortcode looks when added to a post …
After publishing your post, the converted currency will then display like this …
Using The Currencyr Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your website or blog’s sidebar using the plugin’s widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar menu, select Appearance > Widgets in your WordPress user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to the ‘Active Widgets’ location …
Configure the widget settings as shown below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click Save to update your settings …
The currency converter tool will now show on your sidebar menu with the settings you have specified when configuring the widget …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful information about using the plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin allows you to specify the symbol to display as the currency separator when using multiple currencies.
You can change the symbol in the Multiple Separator settings field.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency values using a forward slash as shown below …
If you change this symbol and resave your plugin settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
Integration With e-Commerce Software
As stated earlier, the plugin can be integrated with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(above image sourced from Currencyr plugin website)
Congratulations! Now you can go and easily add currency conversion to your e-commerce web site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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