Are you planning to sell products online to an international audience? If so, you should probably consider providing your web visitors with a currency conversion tool.
Currency converting software tools allow your visitors to convert foreign currency pricing into their local currency at the buying or checkout phase. It also lets your visitors see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their own home currency.
One great benefit of providing currency conversion on your website is that it allows customers to view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own local currency, making it it easier for purchasers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is powered by WordPress, it’s quite easy to add a currency conversion plugin to your WordPress site, allowing your site visitors to easily determine the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – Free Currency Converting Tool For WP Websites
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. And, it’s also free!
Plugin features include the following:
- Inline converter
- Supports several exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- Supports Shortcodes
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with a number of e-store plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can detect local currency automatically
- Full support for language translations
Note: The Currencyr plugin needs your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP. Ask your web host to update your PHP.
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You can install the plugin from your WP admin area by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking “Install Now” …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, you can access the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your dashboard menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings section …
For example, you can choose a base currency from the Base Currency drop-down menu if you prefer to use a different currency than the default option ’United States Dollar’ …
You can also choose any supported data provider from a drop-down menu. The default provider is Yahoo Finance, but you can also choose another provider, such as European Central Bank or Google Finance …
Note: If you choose Open Exchange Rates as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) is required …
You can select how often you would like the currency exchange rates to update by choosing an option from the Update Rates drop-down menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WP plugins).
If you have no reason to change the jQuery settings, leave them as they are …
Edit the remainder of the plugin settings and remember to click Save Changes when you have configured this screen …
Once you have configured your plugin settings, you can easily start adding currency conversion to all of your WordPress blog’s pages using a shortcode.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, JPY, etc …) with this plugin.
How To Use Plugin Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to posts, pages and widgets without editing your web templates using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to your WordPress pages and posts:
Let’s say that you sell a product on your website for a set amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would like to show the amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your page.
All you need to do is add the following shortcode into your page content …
Note: You can also insert amounts in dollars and cents (e.g. 165.49, 29.95, 399.99, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how your shortcode looks when added to your page or post …
After publishing your post or page, your currency conversion will then appear like this …
Using the same example, let’s also display the same price into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
The example below shows how the above shortcode appears when you add it to a post …
Once your post or page has been published, the converted currency amounts will then display like this …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol with this plugin.
Now, suppose you want to use a different base currency than the one set as your default.
For example, say you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your website targeted to non-European customers (for example, Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The screenshot below now shows how the above shortcode looks when inserted into a page …
After publishing the post or page, the converted currency amounts will then appear as shown in the screenshot below …
Using The Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your website’s sidebar using the Currencyr widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets from the WordPress admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to an Active Widgets area …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the example below (add any currency codes you would like displaying on your widget separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
Your currency converter tool will now show on the sidebar with the options you have selected …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful information about using the plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you specify a symbol of your choice to display as the currency separator when using multiple currencies.
You can select a different symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings field.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by the forward slash as shown below …
If you enter another symbol and update your settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
Integration With e-Commerce Software
As described earlier, the plugin integrates with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: 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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