Do you sell goods and services online internationally? If so, then here’s a great idea: think about providing your prospects with a currency conversion service.
Currency converting tools let your customers translate international currency prices to their home currency at the buying or checkout phase. It also lets visitors and customers see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their home currency.
The obvious benefit of showing currency conversion on your website is that it allows your customers to view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, making it it easier for purchasers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, it’s simple to add a currency conversion plugin to WordPress, allowing your site visitors to easily calculate the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – WP Currency Conversion Plugin
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. And, it’s completely free!
Some of the useful features of this useful plugin include:
- In-line conversion tool
- Supports several exchange rates providers, such as Google & European Central Bank
- Supports Shortcodes
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with various online shopping plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency determination
- Supports full language translations
Note: This 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 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 installing and activating the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your admin user area …
The plugin settings screen provides many configuration settings …
For example, you can select a base currency from the ‘Base Currency’ dropdown menu if you want a different currency than the default option ’USD’ …
You can also choose any supported data provider from the drop-down menu in the Provider section. The default option is Yahoo Finance, but you can select one of the other options, like FoxRate or Google Finance …
Note: If you select ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) is required …
You can specify how frequently you would like to update the currency exchange rates by choosing an option from the ‘Update Rates’ dropdown menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (like WP plugins).
If you have no reason to edit the jQuery settings, just ignore this option …
Configure the rest of the settings to suit your own preferences and click Save Changes when done …
When your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily start adding currency conversion to your WP posts using a shortcode.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, JPY, etc …) in this plugin.
Shortcodes
You can easily add currency conversion to posts, pages and widgets without having to mess with 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 an item on your site for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show this amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
To display this information, just add the following shortcode to your page content …
Note: You can also add amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 16.95, 189.00, 400.00, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the above shortcode should look after being inserted into a post …
When your post has been published, the converted currency amount will then display like this …
Using the same example, let’s also display the same price into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode looks when you add it to a post …
After publishing your content, your currency conversion will then appear as seen below …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol within the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you would like to specify 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 customers (e.g. Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The example below shows how the shortcode appears when inserted into a page …
Once the page or post has been published, the converted currency will then display as seen below …
Currencyr Widget
You can also add a currency converter to your site’s sidebar section using the plugin’s widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar menu, select Appearance > Widgets in the WP dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to an ‘Active Widgets’ location …
Configure the widget options as shown below (add the currency codes you would like displaying on your widget separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
The currency converter tool will now show on the sidebar menu with the options you have selected …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional 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 multiple currencies.
You can change the symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings field.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your prices using a forward slash as you can see in the example below …
If you modify the symbol and resave your plugin settings …
Your website visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Software Integration
As mentioned earlier, the plugin integrates with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce and Shopp …
(image sourced from Currencyr plugin website)
And there you have it! Now you know how to easily add a currency converter to your e-commerce website.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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