Do you plan to sell your products online internationally? If so, you should probably consider providing users with the convenience of currency conversion on your site.
Currency conversion software tools allow your prospective customers to translate foreign currency prices into their home currency at the purchase or checkout stage. It also allows visitors to see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their home currency.
The obvious advantage of providing currency conversion is that it allows customers to see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for purchasers to work out their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, you can add currency conversion via a plugin to WordPress, allowing your customers to easily understand the cost of your goods.
WordPress Free Currency Converter – Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a visually attractive converter tooltip. And, it’s also free!
Some of the useful features of this great plugin include the following:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports several exchange rates providers, such as Google and Open Exchange Rates
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with a number of online shopping plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically determines local currency
- Full support for language translations
Important: The Currencyr plugin requires your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed on your server. Ask your web host to check and upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WP dashboard by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking “Install Now” …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your admin menu …
The plugin settings screen offers you various configuration options …
For example, you can select a base currency from a drop-down menu if you want a different currency than the default option ’United States Dollar’ …
Similarly, you can specify which data provider you want to use from a dropdown menu. The default selection is Yahoo Finance, but you can choose one of the other options, such as FoxRate or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select ‘Open Exchange Rates’, an API (Application Programming Interface) will be required …
You can select how often you want the exchange rates to update by choosing 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 (e.g. WP plugins).
If you have no reason to edit the jQuery settings, simply ignore this setting …
Configure the rest of the plugin settings to suit your own preferences and don’t forget to click the Save Changes button when you have finished configuring all the options in this page …
Once you have finished configuring your settings, you can start adding currency conversion to any WordPress post using widgets.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, CAD, etc …) in this plugin.
Plugin Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to posts, pages and widgets with no programming knowledge using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to pages and posts:
Let’s say that you retail a product on your site for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would like to display the conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your product information page.
All you need to do is add the shortcode below to your post or page …
Note: You can also add prices in dollars and cents (e.g. 165.49, 22.00, 2499.99, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode should look once you have inserted it into a post or page …
Once your post or page has been published, your converted currency amount will appear like this …
Using this example, let’s also display the same price into different currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode appears when added to a page …
Once your content has been published, the converted currency amounts will then display as seen in the screenshot below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol with this plugin.
Now, suppose you want to use a different base currency than the one set as the default.
For example, say you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to visitors from countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
Here’s how the shortcode looks when added to a post …
Once your page or post has been published, the converted currency will then appear like this …
How To Use The Plugin Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your site’s sidebar using the plugin’s widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets in your WP dashboard 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 below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
The currency conversion tool will now display on your site’s sidebar menu with the options you have specified when configuring the widget …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional 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 section.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your prices using the forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you change this symbol and update your plugin settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
Integration With WordPress e-Commerce Platforms
As mentioned earlier, the Currencyr plugin can be integrated with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Shopp …
(image source: Currencyr plugin site)
And there you have it! Now you know how to easily add currency conversion to your e-commerce web site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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