Are you planning to set up a WordPress-based e-commerce site, or sell any products internationally? If so, you should think about providing your web visitors with a currency conversion service.
Currency conversion software tools let your prospective customers convert foreign currency prices into their home currency when purchasing or checking out products on e-commerce sites. It also allows visitors to view the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their home currency.
One great benefit of providing currency conversion is that it allows customers to see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for purchasers to calculate their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, you can add currency conversion via a plugin to currency conversion to WordPress using a plugin, allowing your site visitors to quickly work out the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – WP Free Currency Converting Plugin
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. It’s also free to install and use on your WordPress site.
The Currencyr plugin features:
- In-line conversion tool
- Supports several exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Google & European Central Bank
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with a number of online store plugins such as WP-eCommerce & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically determines local currency
- Supports full translations
Important: The Currencyr plugin needs PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed. Ask your web host to check and upgrade your PHP server installation if needed.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WordPress dashboard by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking the ”Install Now” button …
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, you can access the plugin’s settings section by choosing Currencyr from your WP dashboard menu …
The plugin settings screen offers you several configuration settings …
For example, you can choose your base currency from a drop-down menu if you want a different currency than the default option ’US Dollar’ …
You can also specify which data provider you want to use from a dropdown menu. The default option is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can choose another provider, such as European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) is required …
You can specify how frequently you want the exchange rates to update 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 (like WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to modify the jQuery settings, leave them as they are …
Edit the rest of the settings according to your own preferences and remember to click Save Changes when you have configured this section …
Once your plugin settings have been configured, you can add currency conversion to any WordPress page using a shortcode.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, JPY, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
Currencyr Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to WP 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 posts and pages:
Let’s say that you sell your product on your site for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to display the conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
All you need to do is insert the shortcode below to your page content …
Note: You can also display pricing in dollars and cents (e.g. 188.35, 47.00, 400.00, etc …)
The example below shows how your shortcode should look after being inserted into a page …
After the page or post has been published, the converted currency will display as you can see in the example below …
Using the same example, let’s also convert the same price into different currency formats.
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 above shortcode looks when inserted into your content …
Once the post or page has been published, the converted currency amounts will then appear as shown below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol with the Currencyr plugin.
Now, suppose you want to specify a different base currency than the one selected 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 non-European visitors (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 added to a post …
Once the post has been published, your currency conversion will then display as you can see below …
Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your website or blog’s sidebar using a widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar menu, select Appearance > Widgets in your WP dashboard 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 below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to update your settings …
Your currency converter will now appear on the sidebar with the settings you have specified …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful information about using the plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you specify the symbol to display as the currency separator when using several currencies.
You can select a different symbol in the Multiple Separator settings field.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by a forward slash as you can see in the example below …
If you modify the symbol and update your plugin settings …
Your website visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Integration
As described earlier, the Currencyr plugin can be integrated with various WP-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(above image sourced from plugin website)
And there you have it! Now you can go and easily add currency conversion to your e-commerce website.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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