Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce website or selling products to an overseas customer base? If so, then here’s a good idea: think about providing your web visitors with currency conversion.
Currency converting software allows your prospects to translate international currency amounts to their home currency at the point of sale. It also allows your visitors and customers to view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their own home currency.
One advantage of adding currency conversion to your website is that it lets visitors view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for customers to work out their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, you can add currency conversion via a plugin to WordPress, allowing your customers to quickly and easily work out the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – WP Currency Converter
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free!
Plugin features include:
- Inline converter
- Supports various exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Google & FoxRates
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with a number of e-commerce plugins such as WP-eCommerce & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency determination
- Translation support
Note: This plugin requires PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP. Ask your web host to upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the plugin from your WP admin area by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking the “Install Now” button …
After the plugin has been installed and activated, you can access the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your WordPress admin user navigation menu …
The plugin settings area offers you several configuration settings …
For example, you can select a base currency from the ‘Base Currency’ dropdown menu. The default base currency is ’US Dollar’ …
You can also choose a data provider from a drop-down menu. The default selection is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can also choose one of the other options, like FoxRate or Google Finance …
Note: If you select Open Exchange Rates, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can select how often you would like to update the exchange rates by choosing an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down 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. WP 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 ‘Save Changes’ when finished …
When you have finished configuring your settings, you can easily add currency conversion to any WP page using widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, ZAR, etc …) with this plugin.
Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into WP posts, pages and widgets without editing code using shortcodes.
Below are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to pages and posts:
Let’s say that you are selling your product on your website for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to display the conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
To do this, you will need to add the shortcode below into your page content …
Note: You can also display pricing in dollars and cents (for example, 188.35, 37.95, 295.75, etc …)
The example below shows how the above shortcode will look when added to a page …
After publishing the post or page, your converted currency will then display like this …
Using this example, let’s also display the same amount into multiple currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (you can add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
The example below shows how the above shortcode appears when you add it to your content …
Once your post or page has been published, your currency conversion will then appear as you can see in the example below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol within the Currencyr plugin.
Now, suppose you want to specify a different base currency than the one set as your default.
For example, say you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your e-commerce pages targeted to visitors from countries like 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 …
After publishing the page or post, the converted currency will then display like this …
Currencyr Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your website’s sidebar section using the Currencyr widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar area, select Appearance > Widgets in your WP dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to the Active Widgets area …
Configure the widget options as shown below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
The currency conversion tool will now appear on your sidebar with the settings you have specified …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the Currencyr plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin allows you to specify the symbol to display as the currency separator when using multiple currencies.
You can select a different 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 this symbol and update your settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
Integration With WordPress e-Commerce Software
As mentioned earlier, the plugin can be integrated with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image sourced from plugin website)
Congratulations! Now you can go and easily add a currency converter to your e-commerce site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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