Are you planning to set up an e-commerce site, or sell goods internationally? If so, then you should probably consider providing your potential customers with currency conversion.
Currency conversion lets your site visitors have the price of a foreign currency transaction translated into their home currency when purchasing products on e-commerce sites. It also lets your visitors view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their home currency.
The obvious benefit of adding currency conversion is that it lets visitors view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for customers to calculate their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, it’s easy and simple to add a currency converter to currency conversion to your WordPress website using a plugin, allowing your prospective customers to quickly and easily understand the cost of your goods.
Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a unique and attractive converter tooltip. And, it’s free!
Some of the many features of this plugin include the following:
- In-line conversion tool
- Supports various exchange rates providers, such as Google and European Central Bank
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Can be integrated with various e-store plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency determination
- Full language translation support
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. Ask your web host to check and upgrade 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 area and clicking the “Install Now” button …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your WP dashboard navigation menu …
The plugin settings screen offers you various configuration options …
For example, you can select a base currency from a drop-down menu. The default option is (‘USD’) …
Similarly, you can select a data provider from a dropdown menu. The default option is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can 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 choose how often you want the exchange rates to be updated by specifying an option from the ‘Update Rates’ dropdown menu …
The Currencyr 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 modify the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Edit the rest of the settings and click Save Changes when done …
After your plugin settings have been configured, you can start adding currency conversion to WP site’s posts using a shortcode.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, CAD, etc …) with the Currencyr plugin.
Plugin Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to posts, pages and widgets with no web coding knowledge or skills using shortcodes.
Below are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to posts and pages:
Let’s say that you sell goods for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to display your conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your product information page.
To display this information, you will need to add the following shortcode into your page content …
Note: You can also insert prices in dollars and cents (for example, 89.95, 37.95, 2499.99, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the above shortcode should look when added to your post …
After publishing the post, the currency conversion will appear like this …
Using the above example, let’s also translate the same price into different currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
The example below now shows how the shortcode looks when added to a page …
Once the page has been published, the 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 with this plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you want to specify a different base currency than the one selected as the default.
For example, if you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your website targeted to non-European customers (like Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The example below shows how the above shortcode looks when added to a post …
Once the information has been published, your converted currency amounts will then appear as seen in the screenshot below …
How To Use The Plugin Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your website or blog’s sidebar area using the plugin’s widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets from your WP user 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 the currency codes you want displaying on your widget separated by commas), and click Save to save your settings …
The currency converter tool will now appear on your site’s sidebar menu with the settings 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 several currencies.
You can select a different symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings section.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by a forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you modify the symbol and resave your plugin settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Platform Integration
As stated earlier, the Currencyr plugin can be integrated with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: plugin site)
And there you have it! Now you can go and easily add a currency converter to your e-commerce site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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