Are you planning to sell goods or services online to a worldwide market? If so, then you should consider providing your potential customers with currency conversion.
Currency conversion software allows your visitors to convert foreign currency pricing to their local currency at the point of sale. It also lets customers view the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their own local currency.
One benefit of adding currency conversion to your site is that it lets customers view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own home currency, making it it easier for visitors to work out their costs and expenses.
If your site is powered by WordPress, you can add a currency converter to currency conversion to your web site using a plugin, allowing your visitors to easily understand the cost of your products.
Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a visually attractive converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free!
Some of the features of this useful plugin include the following:
- In-line conversion tool
- Supports various exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates & European Central Bank
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Can be integrated with various online store plugins such as WooCommerce and Shopp.
- Automatically determines local currency
- 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 are running an older version of PHP. Ask your web host to update your PHP server installation if necessary.
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You can install the plugin from your WP admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins area and clicking “Install Now” …
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, you can get to the plugin’s settings screen by selecting Currencyr from your dashboard area …
The plugin settings screen provides many configuration settings …
For example, you can select your base currency from a drop-down menu. The default currency is ’US Dollar’ …
You can also specify which data provider you want to use from a drop-down menu. The default option is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can also choose one of the other options, such as European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) is required …
You can specify how often you want the currency exchange rates to be updated by specifying an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down menu …
The Currencyr 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, you can simply ignore this option …
Configure the remainder of the settings to suit your own preferences and remember to click the Save Changes button when finished …
After your plugin settings have been configured, you can add currency conversion to any WordPress page using a shortcode.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the end of this tutorial to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, ZAR, etc …) in this plugin.
Using Currencyr Shortcodes
You can insert currency conversion into posts, pages and widgets without editing code using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to posts and pages:
Let’s say that you are selling an item for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show the amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your page.
To do this, just insert the following shortcode to your post or page …
Note: You can also add amounts in dollars and cents (e.g. 6.95, 37.95, 399.99, etc …)
The example below shows how the shortcode looks when inserting it into a page or post …
After the content has been published, your currency conversion will then display like this …
Using this example, let’s also convert the same amount into different currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode appears when you add it to your content …
Once your information has been published, your currency conversion will then appear like this …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol in the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s say that you want to use a different base currency than the one you have 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 non-European visitors (for example, Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the shortcode appears when inserted into a post …
Once the post has been published, your converted currency amounts will then appear like this …
Using The Plugin Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your site’s sidebar using a widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets in your WP user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to an ‘Active Widgets’ area …
Configure the widget options as shown in the example below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to update your settings …
Your currency converter will now show on the sidebar menu with the options you have specified …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful 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) …
Separates all your currency values using the forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you change this symbol and update your settings …
Your site visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
Integration With e-Commerce Software
As mentioned earlier, the Currencyr plugin integrates with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, Shopp and Easy Digital Downloads …
(above image sourced from plugin site)
And there you have it! Now you know how to easily add a currency converter to your e-commerce web site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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