Do you plan to sell goods or services online globally? If so, then you may want to consider providing your prospects with currency conversion.
Currency conversion software lets your prospective customers translate international currency transactions to their local currency at the point of sale. It also allows visitors and customers to view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their home currency.
The obvious advantage of adding currency conversion is that it lets your customers see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, making it it easier for purchasers to work out their costs and expenses.
If your site is built with WordPress, you can add a currency conversion plugin to currency conversion to WordPress using a plugin, allowing your customers to quickly understand the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – Currency Converting Tool For WordPress
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a visually attractive converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free!
Some of the many features of this plugin include the following:
- Inline converter
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Google & European Central Bank
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Supports integration with a number of e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency determination
- Translation support
Important: The Currencyr plugin requires PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed on your server. Alternatively, ask your web host to check and upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WordPress 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 access the plugin’s settings page by selecting Currencyr from your WP admin area …
The plugin settings area provides various configuration settings …
For example, you can select a base currency from the ‘Base Currency’ dropdown menu. The default option is (‘USD’) …
You can choose a data provider from the drop-down menu in the ‘Provider’ section. The default selection is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can also select another option, like 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 choose how frequently you want the exchange rates to be updated by selecting an option from the Update Rates drop-down menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WordPress plugins).
Unless you have a reason to modify the jQuery settings, leave them as they are …
Edit the remainder of the plugin settings to suit your preferences and remember to click Save Changes when you have configured all of your options …
Once you have configured your settings, you can add currency conversion to your WP site’s posts using shortcodes.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, ZAR, etc …) in this plugin.
How To Use Plugin Shortcodes
You can insert currency conversion into posts, pages and widgets without having to edit code 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 sell your products online for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would like to display your amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your product sales page.
To do this, you will need to add the following shortcode into your post or page …
Note: You can also insert prices in dollars and cents (e.g. 19.95, 189.00, 2499.99, etc …)
The example below shows how the above shortcode will look after being inserted into the page or post …
When your information has been published, the currency conversion will display like this …
Using the same example, let’s now display the same price into different currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode appears when you add it to a page …
After publishing your content, the converted currency will then appear as shown below …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol in the Currencyr plugin.
Now, suppose you want to select a different base currency than the one you have set as your default.
For example, say you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to customers from countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The example below shows how the above shortcode looks when you add it to your content …
After publishing your post, your currency conversion will then display like this …
Using The Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your website’s sidebar section using a widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar menu, choose Appearance > Widgets from your WP admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to the Active Widgets location …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the screenshot below (add any currency codes you want displaying on your widget separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
The currency conversion tool will now appear on your website’s sidebar menu with the options you have specified …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful information about using the Currencyr plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you specify the symbol to display as the currency separator when using several currencies.
You can select a different symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings section.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your prices with a forward slash as shown below …
If you change this symbol and update your settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Platform Integration
As mentioned earlier, the plugin can be integrated with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Shopp …
(image sourced from Currencyr plugin website)
Congratulations! Now you can go and easily add a currency converter to your e-commerce web site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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