Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce site or selling products online? If so, then you should consider providing users with a currency conversion feature.
Currency conversion software tools let your prospects translate international currency amounts to their local currency when purchasing products online. It also lets your visitors see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their own local currency.
The obvious benefit of adding currency conversion to your site is that it allows visitors to see and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own local currency, making it it easier for visitors to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is powered by WordPress, you can add currency conversion via a plugin to currency conversion to your site via a plugin, allowing your prospective customers to quickly calculate the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – WP Free Currency Conversion Plugin
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a unique converter tooltip. It’s also free to install and use on your WP website.
The Currencyr useful WP plugin features:
- In-line converter
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, like Google & FoxRates
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Supports integration with a number of e-commerce plugins such as WP-eCommerce & Shopp.
- Automatically detects 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 use this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP on your server. Alternatively, ask your web host to update your PHP server installation if necessary.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WordPress dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins screen and clicking “Install Now” …
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, you can configure the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your admin user navigation menu …
The plugin settings section provides several configuration options …
For example, you can choose a base currency from the Base Currency drop-down menu if you prefer a different currency than the default option ’US Dollar’ …
Similarly, you can specify a data provider from the dropdown menu in the ‘Provider’ section. The default selection is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can also select another provider, like European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance 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 to update the currency exchange rates by specifying an option from the Update Rates dropdown menu …
The 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 change the jQuery settings, leave these as they are …
Edit the rest of the plugin settings according to your preferences and click ‘Save Changes’ when done …
Once you have finished configuring your settings, you can easily add currency conversion to WordPress blog’s posts using a shortcode.
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 the Currencyr plugin.
Using Plugin Shortcodes
You can insert currency conversion into WordPress pages, posts and widgets with no web coding skills using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to pages and posts:
Let’s say that you retail your products for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show your price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your page.
All you need to do is insert the shortcode below to your post or page …
Note: You can also insert amounts in dollars and cents (e.g. 188.35, 47.00, 544.97, etc …)
The example below shows how the shortcode will look after being added to a page or post …
After the post has been published, the currency conversion will then display like this …
Using the same example, let’s now translate the same amount into multiple currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (you can add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
The screenshot below shows how the above shortcode looks when added to a page …
After publishing your page or post, the converted currency amounts will then display as seen in the example below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol in this plugin.
Now, suppose you would like to specify 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 website targeted to customers from countries 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 your content …
After publishing your content, your converted currency amounts will then display like this …
Currencyr Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your site’s sidebar using the Currencyr widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets in the WordPress admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to an ‘Active Widgets’ area …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the example below (add the currency codes you want to display on your widget separated by a comma), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
The currency conversion tool will now display on your sidebar menu with the options you have selected …
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 multiple currencies.
You can change the symbol in the Multiple Separator settings section.
So, for example, entering 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 this symbol and update your plugin settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
Using The Plugin With WP-Compatible e-Commerce Software
As described earlier, the plugin can be integrated with various WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, Shopp and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: plugin website)
Congratulations! Now you can go and 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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