Do you plan to set up an e-commerce site, or sell products to an overseas market? If so, then you may want to consider providing users with the convenience of currency conversion on your site.
Currency conversion software lets your customers have the cost of a foreign currency transaction translated into their home currency when checking out products online. It also lets customers see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their own local currency.
The obvious benefit of displaying currency conversion is that it lets visitors view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own local currency, making it it easier for customers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, you can add currency conversion using a plugin to currency conversion to WordPress using a plugin, allowing your prospective customers to quickly and easily determine the cost of your products.
Currencyr – Currency Converter For WP Websites
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free to install and use on your site.
Some of the features of this great plugin include the following:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports various exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates and FoxRates
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Can be integrated with a number of e-store plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically determines local currency
- Full translation support
Note: This plugin requires your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed on your server. Ask your webhosting company to upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WordPress dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins screen and clicking “Install Now” …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your WordPress admin navigation menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings screen …
For example, you can select a base currency from the Base Currency dropdown menu. The default currency is ’USD’ …
You can also choose which data provider you want to use from the drop-down menu in the ‘Provider’ section. The default option is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can also select another option, like European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select Open Exchange Rates as your provider, you will need to enter an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can select how frequently you would like the exchange rates to be updated by choosing an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (e.g. WP plugins).
Unless you have a reason to modify the jQuery settings, you can just ignore this setting …
Configure the rest of the plugin settings to suit your needs and click ‘Save Changes’ when you have configured all of your settings …
Once you have finished configuring your settings, you can easily start adding currency conversion to all of your WP blog’s pages using widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, CAD, etc …) with this plugin.
Using Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to pages, posts and widgets with no technical knowledge or skills using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to pages and posts:
Let’s say that you are selling a product for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would like to display your conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your page.
To do this, you simply need to insert the shortcode below into your post or page …
Note: You can also insert prices in dollars and cents (for example, 89.95, 47.00, 400.00, etc …)
The example below shows how your shortcode should look when inserting it into a product page …
After the information has been published, your currency conversion will appear as shown below …
Using the above example, let’s also display the same price into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
The example below shows how the shortcode looks when you add it to a page …
After publishing your page or post, the currency conversion will then appear as shown below …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol within the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you want to select a different base currency than the one you have set as your default.
For example, say you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to visitors from countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the shortcode looks when added to a page …
After publishing your post or page, the converted currency will then display like this …
Widget
You can also add a currency converter to your site’s sidebar using the plugin’s widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets in your WP user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to the ‘Active Widgets’ area …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the screenshot below (add any currency codes you want to display on your widget separated by a comma), and click Save to update your settings …
The currency conversion tool will now show on your website’s sidebar with the options you have selected …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful information about using the Currencyr plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin allows you to specify the symbol to display as the currency separator when using multiple currencies.
You can select a different symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings section.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency amounts with a forward slash as shown below …
If you enter another symbol and resave your settings …
Your web visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
Integration With e-Commerce Platforms
As stated earlier, the Currencyr plugin can be integrated with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: Currencyr plugin website)
And there you have it! Now you know how to easily add currency conversion to your WordPress site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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