Are you planning to set up an e-commerce site, or sell goods or services to an overseas audience? If so, then here’s a great idea: think about providing your potential customers with a currency conversion feature.
Currency converting tools let your prospects have the cost of an international currency amount converted to their local currency at the point of sale. It also lets your visitors see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their home currency.
One advantage of putting currency conversion is that it lets your customers see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for visitors to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is powered by WordPress, you can add a currency conversion plugin to your web site, allowing your site visitors to quickly determine the cost of your products.
WP Currency Converting Plugin – Currencyr
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique and attractive converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free to install and use on your WordPress website or blog.
This useful WordPress plugin features:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports several exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates & FoxRates
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Can be integrated with a number of e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can determine local currency automatically
- Full translation support
Important: The Currencyr 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. Ask your webhosting provider to upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the plugin from your WordPress admin area by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking “Install Now” …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your admin menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings page …
For example, you can choose a base currency from the Base Currency dropdown menu. The default currency is ‘USD’ …
Similarly, you can choose which data provider you want to use from a drop-down menu. The default provider 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, an API (Application Programming Interface) is required …
You can select how frequently you would like the currency exchange rates to update by choosing an option from the Update Rates dropdown menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (e.g. WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to change the jQuery settings, simply ignore this section …
Edit the remainder of the settings and click Save Changes when done …
After your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily add currency conversion to any WP page or post using a shortcode.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, ZAR, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
How To Use Currencyr Shortcodes
You can insert currency conversion into 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 pages and posts:
Let’s say that you retail goods for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to show your conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your page.
To display this information, you will need to insert the shortcode below to your page content …
Note: You can also insert pricing in dollars and cents (for example, 19.95, 37.95, 2499.99, etc …)
The example below shows how your shortcode looks after being inserted into the product page …
Once your information has been published, the currency conversion will then appear like this …
Using the above example, let’s now convert the same amount into different currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode looks when you add it to a page …
Once the page has been published, your currency conversion will then display like this …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol in this plugin.
Now, suppose you want to use a different base currency than the one set as your default.
For example, say you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to customers in countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
Here’s how the above shortcode looks when inserted into a post …
After publishing your content, the currency conversion will then appear as seen in the example below …
How To Use The Plugin Widget
You can also add a currency converter to your website’s sidebar area using the plugin’s widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar menu, choose Appearance > Widgets in the WordPress user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to the ‘Active Widgets’ location …
Configure the widget options as shown below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click Save to update your settings …
The currency conversion tool will now show on your site’s 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 allows you to 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 field.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency amounts with a forward slash as shown below …
If you change the symbol and resave your settings …
Your site visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
Integration With WordPress e-Commerce Software
As described earlier, the plugin integrates with various WP-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: plugin site)
Congratulations! Now you know how to 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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