Do you plan to set up an e-commerce web site, or sell your products globally? If so, you should think about providing your potential customers with a currency conversion tool.
Currency conversion allows your site visitors to translate international currency amounts to their local currency at the buying or checkout stage. It also allows your customers to view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their local currency.
One advantage of putting currency conversion on your site is that it lets customers see and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own local 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 converter to currency conversion to WordPress via a plugin, allowing your visitors to quickly and easily determine the cost of your products.
Currencyr – Free Currency Conversion Plugin For WP Websites
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a visually attractive converter tooltip. And, it’s also free!
Some of the features of this useful plugin include the following:
- In-line converter
- Supports several exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates & 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, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can determine local currency automatically
- Supports full language translations
Note: This plugin requires 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 webhosting provider to check and upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins screen and clicking the “Install Now” button …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your WP dashboard menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings section …
For example, you can select your base currency from a drop-down menu if you want something other than the default option ’USD’ …
Similarly, you can choose which data provider you want to use from the dropdown menu in the Provider section. The default selection is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can choose one of the other options, such as FoxRate or Google Finance …
Note: If you select ‘Open Exchange Rates’, an API (Application Programming Interface) is required …
You can specify how frequently you would like to update the exchange rates by choosing an option from the Update Rates dropdown 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 (e.g. WordPress plugins).
Unless you have a reason to modify the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Configure the rest of the plugin settings and don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button when you have configured this section …
When your plugin settings have been configured, you can start adding currency conversion to any WordPress page using shortcodes.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the end of this tutorial to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, ZAR, etc …) with the Currencyr plugin.
Using Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to posts, pages and widgets with no technical knowledge or skills using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WordPress pages and posts:
Let’s say that you retail a product on your website for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to show this conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
All you need to do is insert the shortcode below to your post or page …
Note: You can also add amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 89.95, 29.95, 2499.99, etc …)
The example below shows how the shortcode looks when added to your post or page …
Once the post has been published, the currency conversion will appear like this …
Using the above example, let’s also translate the same price into multiple currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode below (add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
The screenshot below shows how the above shortcode appears when added to a page …
After publishing the post, your converted currency amounts will then appear as you can see in the screenshot below …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol within this plugin.
Now, let’s say that you want to select a different base currency than the one selected as your default.
For example, if you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your e-commerce pages targeted to non-European visitors (like Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the shortcode looks when you add it to a page …
After publishing your page, the converted currency amounts will then appear like this …
Plugin Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your site’s sidebar menu using the Currencyr widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets in the WP user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to the ‘Active Widgets’ location …
Configure the widget options as shown in the screenshot below (add any currency codes you would like displaying on your widget separated by commas), and click Save to update your settings …
The currency conversion tool will now appear on your website’s sidebar with the options you have specified when configuring the widget …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful 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 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 example below …
If you modify the symbol and resave your plugin settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
Integration With WordPress e-Commerce Software
As stated earlier, the Currencyr plugin can be integrated with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: Currencyr 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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