Do you plan to set up a WordPress-based e-commerce site, or sell products online? If so, then it’s a great idea to consider providing your prospects with a currency conversion feature.
Currency conversion tools allow your prospects to translate foreign currency transactions to their home currency at the point of sale. It also lets visitors and customers view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their home currency.
One great advantage of adding currency conversion to your website is that it lets customers view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for customers to work out their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, it’s easy to add currency conversion using a plugin to currency conversion to your website via a plugin, allowing your visitors to quickly work out the cost of your products.
WordPress Currency Converting Plugin – Currencyr
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique converter tooltip. And, it’s completely free to install and use on your WP site.
This plugin includes features like the following:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports several exchange rates providers, like Google, Open Exchange Rates & European Central Bank
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with various e-store plugins such as WooCommerce & Shopp.
- Automatically determines local currency
- Supports full translations
Important: The Currencyr plugin needs PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed. Ask your web host to upgrade your PHP server installation if required.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WordPress dashboard by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking the ”Install Now” button …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can visit the plugin’s settings area by choosing Currencyr from your WordPress administration area …
The plugin settings screen provides a number of configuration options …
For example, you can select your base currency from the Base Currency dropdown menu. The default currency is ’United States Dollar’ …
You can choose any supported data provider from the dropdown menu in the ‘Provider’ section. The default option is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can select one of the other options, like European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can choose how frequently you want the exchange rates to be updated by specifying an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which is an open-source library of Javascript code that lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WP plugins).
If you have no reason to modify the jQuery settings, leave these as they are …
Configure the remainder of the settings and click ‘Save Changes’ when done …
After your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily start adding currency conversion to any WP post or page using shortcodes and widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, JPY, etc …) in this plugin.
Shortcodes
You can insert currency conversion into pages, posts and widgets without editing your web templates 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 an item for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show your 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 insert pricing in dollars and cents (e.g. 89.95, 97.00, 1356.87, etc …)
The example below shows how your shortcode looks when inserting it into your page …
After the content has been published, your currency conversion will appear like this …
Using this example, let’s also display the same amount into different currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (you can add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
The example below now shows how the above shortcode appears when you add it to a post …
Once your content has been published, the converted currency amounts will then display as seen below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol with this plugin.
Now, suppose you would like to use a different base currency than the one set as your default.
For example, if you have set 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 inserted into a post …
Once the page has been published, your currency conversion will then appear like this …
Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your site’s sidebar area using the Currencyr widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets in your WordPress admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to an Active Widgets area …
Configure the widget settings as shown below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click Save to update your settings …
Your currency converter will now appear on your sidebar menu with the options you have specified …
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 several currencies.
You can select a different symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings field.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by the forward slash as shown below …
If you specify another symbol and update your plugin settings …
Your website visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
Integration With e-Commerce Software
As stated earlier, the plugin integrates with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Shopp …
(image source: plugin website)
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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