Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce site or selling goods internationally? If so, then here’s a great idea: consider providing your prospects with the convenience of currency conversion on your e-commerce web site.
Currency conversion lets your customers convert international currency amounts into their local currency at the point of sale. It also allows your customers to see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their home currency.
The obvious benefit of showing currency conversion on your website is that it allows visitors to view and understand prices 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, it’s simple to add a currency converter to currency conversion to WordPress using a plugin, allowing your site visitors to quickly understand the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – Free Currency Converting Plugin For WP Websites
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique converter tooltip. And, it’s 100% free!
Some of the features of this useful plugin include:
- Inline converter
- Supports various exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with a number of e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can detect local currency automatically
- Translation support
Note: The Currencyr 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. Ask your web hosting provider to upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins area and clicking “Install Now” …
After the plugin has been installed and activated, you can get to the plugin’s settings area by selecting Currencyr from your admin user navigation menu …
The plugin settings page offers you several configuration options …
For example, you can choose your base currency from a drop-down menu. The default currency is ‘USD’ …
You can choose a data provider from a drop-down menu. The default provider is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can also select one of the other options, such as European Central Bank or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can choose how frequently you would like to update the currency exchange rates by specifying an option from the Update Rates drop-down menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which is an open-source library of Javascript code that lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WordPress plugins).
Unless there is a reason to edit the jQuery settings, simply ignore this section …
Configure the rest of the plugin settings according to your own preferences and click ‘Save Changes’ when done …
Once your plugin settings have been configured, you can add currency conversion to any WordPress post using shortcodes and widgets.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, JPY, etc …) with the Currencyr plugin.
Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into WordPress posts, pages and widgets with no coding skills or knowledge using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to your WP posts and pages:
Let’s say that you sell a product on your website for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show this amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your product sales page.
To display this information, just add the shortcode below to your page content …
Note: You can also insert amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 175.00, 47.00, 2499.99, etc …)
The example below shows how your shortcode should look once you have inserted it into the page …
After publishing your content, the currency conversion will then appear as shown in the example below …
Using the above example, let’s also display the same amount into different currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode looks when added to a post …
After publishing your information, your converted currency amounts will then display as seen in the example below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the end of this tutorial to learn how to change the currency separator symbol with the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s say that you want to specify 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 visitors in countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The example below shows how the shortcode looks when added to your content …
After publishing your post, your converted currency will then appear as you can see below …
Plugin Widget
You can also add a currency converter to your website or blog’s sidebar using a widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar area, select Appearance > Widgets from the WordPress 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 below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to update your settings …
Your currency conversion tool will now appear on your site’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 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 section.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by the forward slash as shown below …
If you modify this symbol and update your plugin settings …
Your site visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
WordPress E-Commerce
As described earlier, the plugin can be integrated with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Shopp …
(image source: Currencyr plugin website)
And there you have it! Now you know how to easily add a currency converter to your e-commerce site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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