Are you planning to set up a WordPress-based e-commerce site, or sell goods online? If so, then you should probably think about providing your prospects with the convenience of currency conversion on your website.
Currency converting software tools allow your prospects to convert foreign currency prices into their home currency at the buying or checkout phase. It also allows your visitors and customers to see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their home currency.
One benefit of adding currency conversion to your website is that it lets visitors view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for visitors to work out their costs and expenses.
If your site is built using WordPress, you can add a currency conversion plugin to WordPress, allowing your customers to quickly calculate the cost of your goods.
Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a unique and attractive converter tooltip. It’s also free to install and use on your site.
Plugin features include the following:
- Inline converter
- Supports several exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo! and Open Exchange Rates
- Supports Shortcodes
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with a number of online shopping plugins such as WP-eCommerce and Shopp.
- Automatic local currency detection
- Supports full translations
Note: This plugin requires 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 web host to upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WordPress dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins area and clicking “Install Now” …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your WP admin area …
The plugin settings section offers you many configuration settings …
For example, you can select your base currency from a dropdown menu. The default option is ’USD’ …
Similarly, you can 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 choose another option, like FoxRate or Google Finance …
Note: If you choose ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, you will need to obtain an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can choose how frequently you would like to update the exchange rates by selecting an option from the Update Rates drop-down menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WP plugins).
Unless you have a reason to change the jQuery settings, just ignore this option …
Configure the remainder of the settings to suit your own needs and click ‘Save Changes’ when done …
When your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily add currency conversion to your WP site’s pages and posts using shortcodes.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, ZAR, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
How To Use Plugin Shortcodes
You can insert currency conversion into pages, posts and widgets with no programming skills using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to posts and pages:
Let’s say that you sell goods for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show this conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your product sales page.
All you need to do is insert the following shortcode to your page content …
Note: You can also insert pricing in dollars and cents (e.g. 165.49, 37.95, 544.97, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the above shortcode looks after you have added it to your post …
When the post or page has been published, the converted currency will appear as seen in the example below …
Using the above example, let’s also translate the same amount into multiple currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode appears when you add it to a page …
After publishing the content, your currency conversion will then appear as you can see in the screenshot below …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol in the Currencyr plugin.
Now, suppose you would like to select a different base currency than the one selected as the default.
For example, if you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your website targeted to customers in countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The screenshot below shows how the above shortcode looks when added to a page …
After publishing your post or page, your converted currency will then display like this …
How To Use The Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your site’s sidebar area using the Currencyr widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets in the WordPress dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to an ‘Active Widgets’ area …
Configure the widget options as shown in the example below (add any currency codes you would like to display on your widget separated by commas), and click Save to update your settings …
The currency converter will now show on the sidebar menu with the options you have specified when configuring the widget …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional 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 change the symbol in the Multiple Separator settings section.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your prices with the forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you change the symbol and resave your settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
WordPress E-Commerce
As stated earlier, the plugin can be integrated with various WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: Currencyr plugin website)
And there you have it! Now you can go and easily add a currency converter to your WordPress web site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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