Are you planning to sell goods and services online to a foreign customer base? If so, then you may want to consider providing users with the convenience of currency conversion on your e-commerce site.
Currency conversion allows your prospects to have the price of a foreign currency amount converted to their home currency when purchasing or checking out products on e-commerce sites. It also allows visitors and customers to view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their home currency.
One advantage of providing currency conversion on your website is that it lets visitors view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, making it it easier for visitors to work out their costs and expenses.
If your site is powered by WordPress, it’s simple to add currency conversion using a plugin to WordPress, allowing your visitors to quickly and easily work out the cost of your goods.
WordPress Free Currency Conversion Plugin – Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free to install and use on your WP website.
Some of the features of this plugin include:
- Inline converter
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, like 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 like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically detects local currency
- Full support for language translations
Important: The Currencyr plugin requires PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed. Alternatively, ask your web hosting support team to check and upgrade your PHP server installation if necessary.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WP dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins section and clicking the ”Install Now” button …
After you have installed and activated the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your admin area …
This takes you to the plugin settings screen …
For example, you can select a base currency from a drop-down menu. The default option is ’USD’ …
Similarly, you can select which data provider you want to use from a drop-down menu. The default option is Yahoo Finance, but you can select one of the other options, such as FoxRate or Google Finance …
Note: If you choose Open Exchange Rates as your provider, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can choose how often you would like the exchange rates to be updated by specifying an option from the Update Rates dropdown menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which is an open-source library of Javascript code that allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (like WP plugins).
If you have no reason to change the jQuery settings, simply ignore this setting …
Configure the remainder of the plugin settings according to your preferences and click the ‘Save Changes’ button when done …
After your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily start adding currency conversion to any WP page or post using shortcodes.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, CAD, etc …) with this plugin.
Using Currencyr Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into WordPress pages, posts and widgets with no programming knowledge or skills using shortcodes.
Below are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to pages and posts:
Let’s say that you are selling an item on your website for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to show your amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
All you need to do is add the following shortcode into your page content …
Note: You can also display prices in dollars and cents (e.g. 175.00, 47.00, 129.10, etc …)
The example below shows how your shortcode will look after you have added it to the product page …
Once the post or page has been published, your currency conversion will then display like this …
Using this example, let’s now display the same price into multiple currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
The screenshot below shows how the above shortcode appears when inserted into your content …
Once the page or post 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 with this plugin.
Now, suppose you want to use a different base currency than the one selected 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 visitors (like Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the above shortcode looks when inserted into a page …
After publishing the post, the currency conversion will then display as shown below …
How To Use The Currencyr Widget
You can also add a currency converter to your site’s sidebar menu using the Currencyr widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets from your WP user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to the 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 …
The currency converter will now display on your site’s sidebar with the options 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 change the symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings field.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by the forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you modify 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 can be integrated with various WP-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(above image sourced from plugin website)
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add a currency converter to your WordPress site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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