Do you plan to set up an e-commerce website, or sell your products worldwide? If so, you may want to consider providing users with currency conversion.
Currency converting tools allow your site visitors to convert international currency pricing into their local currency at the buying or checkout phase. It also allows your customers to view the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their local currency.
One great advantage of providing currency conversion on your site is that it lets customers see and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for customers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is built using WordPress, you can add currency conversion using a plugin to currency conversion to your web site using a plugin, allowing your prospective customers to easily understand the cost of your products.
Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a unique converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free to install and use on your website or blog.
The Currencyr currency conversion plugin includes advanced features like:
- Inline converter
- Supports various exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- Supports Shortcodes
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with various e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can detect local currency automatically
- Full translation support
Important: This plugin requires 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 on your server. Alternatively, ask your web hosting provider to update your PHP.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WP dashboard by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking the ”Install Now” button …
After you have installed and activated the plugin, you can get to the plugin’s settings section by selecting Currencyr from your WordPress admin navigation menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings page …
For example, you can select a base currency from a drop-down menu. The default base currency is ’USD’ …
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 one of the other options, such as European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select Open Exchange Rates, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can select how frequently you want the exchange rates to update by selecting 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 (e.g. WP plugins).
Unless there is a reason to modify the jQuery settings, you can simply ignore this section …
Configure the rest of the settings according to your own needs and remember to click ‘Save Changes’ when you have finished configuring this screen …
When you have finished configuring your plugin settings, you can easily start adding currency conversion to any WP page or post using shortcodes and widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, CAD, etc …) in this plugin.
Plugin Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into WordPress posts, pages and widgets with no technical skills using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WP posts and pages:
Let’s say that you sell goods for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would like to show the conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your product information page.
To do this, simply add the shortcode below to your page content …
Note: You can also add prices in dollars and cents (for example, 155.25, 197.00, 2499.99, etc …)
The example below shows how the shortcode looks after you have inserted it into the page or post …
When the post or page has been published, the currency conversion will appear like this …
Using this example, let’s now convert the same price into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode looks when you add it to your content …
Once the post or page has been published, the currency conversion will then appear as you can see below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol within the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you want to select a different base currency than the one set as the default.
For example, say you have set 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 …
You can see how the above shortcode looks when you add it to a page …
After publishing your post, your currency conversion will then appear as seen in the example below …
Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your site’s sidebar section using the Currencyr widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar menu, select Appearance > Widgets in the WP dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to an Active Widgets area …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the screenshot below (add any currency codes you want displaying on your widget separated by commas), and click Save to update your settings …
Your currency converter will now display on your website’s sidebar menu with the options you have selected …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the Currencyr plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin allows you to specify a symbol of your choice to display as the currency separator when using several currencies.
You can change the symbol in the Multiple Separator settings field.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by a forward slash as shown below …
If you change the symbol and resave your settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
Integration With e-Commerce Software
As stated earlier, the Currencyr plugin integrates with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image sourced from 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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