Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce site or making goods available for sale internationally? If so, then here’s a good idea: consider providing users with currency conversion.
Currency converting tools let your prospective customers translate foreign currency pricing to their home currency at the buying or checkout stage. It also allows your customers to see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their own home currency.
The obvious benefit of showing currency conversion is that it lets visitors view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, making it it easier for purchasers to work out their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, you can add a currency conversion plugin to currency conversion to your WP site using a plugin, allowing your visitors to easily calculate the cost of your goods.
Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a visually attractive converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free to install and use on your website.
Useful plugin features include:
- Inline converter
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, like Yahoo! and Open Exchange Rates
- Supports Shortcodes
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Supports integration with various e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically determines local currency
- Supports full language translations
Important: This plugin needs your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP. Alternatively, ask your web host to upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the Currencyr 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 visit the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your WP administration area …
This takes you to the plugin settings area …
For example, you can choose your base currency from a dropdown menu. The default base currency is ‘USD’ …
Similarly, you can specify a data provider from the dropdown menu in the ‘Provider’ section. The default option is Yahoo Finance, but you can also select another provider, such as European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose Open Exchange Rates, an API (Application Programming Interface) is required …
You can select how often you would like to update the currency exchange rates by choosing an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to change the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Edit the rest of the plugin settings and click ‘Save Changes’ when done …
When you have configured your settings, you can start adding currency conversion to all of your WordPress site’s pages and posts using widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the end of this tutorial to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, ZAR, etc …) with the Currencyr plugin.
Currencyr Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to WordPress pages, posts and widgets without touching code using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WordPress pages and posts:
Let’s say that you are selling a product online for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to display the amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
All you need to do is insert the shortcode below into your post or page …
Note: You can also insert amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 165.49, 79.45, 544.97, etc …)
The example below shows how your shortcode will look when inserting it into the page …
After your post has been published, the converted currency will display as shown in the screenshot below …
Using this example, let’s also display the same amount into different currency formats.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (you can add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
The screenshot below shows how the above shortcode looks when added to your content …
Once your page or post has been published, your currency conversion will then display like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol in this plugin.
Now, suppose you would like to select a different base currency than the one selected as the default.
For example, if you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your e-commerce pages 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 inserted into your content …
After publishing the information, your converted currency amounts will then display like this …
Plugin Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your website or blog’s sidebar menu using a widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar area, choose Appearance > Widgets in your WP user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to the Active Widgets location …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the screenshot below (add the currency codes you would like to display on your widget separated by a comma), and click Save to update your settings …
Your currency conversion tool will now display 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 lets you specify the symbol to display as the currency separator when using several currencies.
You can change the symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings field.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by a forward slash as you can see in the example below …
If you change this symbol and resave your settings …
Your website visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
Integration With e-Commerce Platforms
As mentioned earlier, the plugin can be integrated with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Shopp …
(image source: plugin website)
And there you have it! Now you can go and easily add currency conversion to your e-commerce site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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