Do you plan to sell goods online globally? If so, then here’s a good idea: consider providing users with a currency conversion tool.
Currency conversion software tools let your customers have the cost of a foreign currency amount converted to their local currency at the purchase or checkout stage. It also allows your visitors to see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their own local currency.
One great advantage of providing currency conversion is that it allows 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 your site is built using WordPress, it’s easy and simple to add a currency conversion plugin to currency conversion to WordPress via a plugin, allowing your site visitors to quickly calculate the cost of your products.
Currencyr – Free Currency Converting Tool For WP Web Sites
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. It’s also free!
The Currencyr currency conversion WordPress plugin includes a number of features such as:
- In-line conversion tool
- Supports various exchange rates providers, like Yahoo! & European Central Bank
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with various online shopping plugins such as WooCommerce & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically detects local currency
- Translation support
Note: The Currencyr plugin requires PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP. Alternatively, ask your web host to check and 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 “Install Now” …
After the plugin has been installed and activated, you can visit the plugin’s settings screen by choosing Currencyr from your admin menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings screen …
For example, you can choose your base currency from a dropdown menu if you want a different currency than the default option ’US Dollar’ …
You can also specify any supported data provider from the dropdown menu in the ‘Provider’ section. The default option is Yahoo Finance, but you can choose another provider, such as European Central Bank 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 update by choosing an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down 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, leave this option alone …
Edit the remainder of the settings to suit your own preferences and click the ‘Save Changes’ button when done …
Once you have configured your settings, you can easily add currency conversion to WP website’s posts and pages using shortcodes and widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, ZAR, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
Using Plugin Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to pages, posts and widgets with no programming skills or knowledge 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 are selling goods for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show the conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your product sales page.
To do this, you simply need to add the shortcode below to your post or page …
Note: You can also add amounts in dollars and cents (e.g. 175.00, 22.00, 400.00, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how your shortcode looks after being added to the page …
After publishing your content, the converted currency will then appear like this …
Using this example, let’s also translate the same price into different currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode below (add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode appears when you add it to a page …
After publishing the page or post, the currency conversion will then appear like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol in this plugin.
Now, let’s say that you want to specify a different base currency than the one you have set as the default.
For example, say you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site 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 added to a post …
After publishing your information, the converted currency amounts will then appear like this …
Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your site’s sidebar menu using the Currencyr widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets from the WordPress dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to an Active Widgets location …
Configure the widget settings as shown below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
The currency converter will now show on your site’s sidebar menu with the settings 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 select a different symbol in the Multiple Separator settings section.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency values with a forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you specify another symbol and resave your settings …
Your web visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Integration
As described earlier, the Currencyr plugin can be integrated with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, Shopp and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: plugin website)
And there you have it! Now you know how to easily add currency conversion to your WordPress site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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