Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce website or making products available for sale globally? If so, then here’s a good idea: think about providing your prospects with a currency conversion tool.
Currency converting software lets your customers translate foreign currency prices to their home currency when purchasing products on e-commerce sites. It also allows visitors and customers to see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their home currency.
The obvious benefit of adding currency conversion to your site is that it lets customers view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for purchasers to work out their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, it’s easy to add currency conversion via a plugin to your WordPress website or blog, allowing your customers to quickly understand the cost of your products.
WordPress Free Currency Converter – Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique and attractive converter tooltip. And, it’s free to install and use on your site.
The Currencyr plugin features:
- Inline converter
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with a number of e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, Shop & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency determination
- Support for language translations
Important: The Currencyr plugin requires PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP. Ask your webhosting provider to check and upgrade your PHP server installation.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WP admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins section and clicking “Install Now” …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, you can get to the plugin’s settings section by selecting Currencyr from your WordPress dashboard area …
This takes you to the plugin settings screen …
For example, you can choose a base currency from a drop-down menu if you prefer a different currency than the default option (USD) …
Similarly, you can select a data provider from the dropdown menu in the Provider section. The default provider 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 choose Open Exchange Rates as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) is required …
You can choose how often you would like to update the exchange rates 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 (like WordPress plugins).
Unless there is a reason to modify the jQuery settings, leave them as they are …
Edit the rest of the settings and remember to click Save Changes when done …
Once your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily start adding currency conversion to your WP posts using widgets.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the end of this tutorial to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, ZAR, etc …) with this plugin.
Using Currencyr Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into WordPress posts, pages and widgets without having to edit code using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WordPress posts and pages:
Let’s say that you sell goods for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to show your conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
To do this, simply insert the shortcode below into your post or page …
Note: You can also insert prices in dollars and cents (e.g. 165.49, 197.00, 2499.99, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode looks after being added to the product page …
After publishing the post or page, your converted currency will appear like this …
Using this example, let’s now display the same amount into different currency formats.
To do this, use the shortcode below (add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode looks when inserted into a page …
After publishing your information, the currency conversion will then appear like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol within the Currencyr plugin.
Now, suppose you would like to use a different base currency than the one selected as the default.
For example, say you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your e-commerce pages targeted to non-European customers (for example, Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the shortcode looks when you add it to your content …
Once your post has been published, your currency conversion will then display as shown in the example below …
Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your site’s sidebar area using the Currencyr widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar menu, select Appearance > Widgets from your WP admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section 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 would like displaying on your widget separated by commas), and click Save to save your settings …
Your currency converter tool will now appear on your site’s sidebar with the settings you have specified when configuring the widget …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the Currencyr plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you specify the symbol to display as the currency separator when using multiple currencies.
You can change the symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings field.
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 site visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Software Integration
As described earlier, the plugin can be integrated with a number of WordPress-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 currency conversion to your WordPress web site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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