Are you planning to sell goods and services online to a global customer base? If so, then here’s a good idea: think about providing users with the convenience of currency conversion on your e-commerce web site.
Currency conversion software tools allow your site visitors to convert international currency amounts to their home currency when checking out products online. It also lets visitors and customers view the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their own home currency.
One great advantage of showing currency conversion on your website is that it lets visitors see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, making it it easier for customers to work out their costs and expenses.
If your site is powered by WordPress, you can add currency conversion via a plugin to currency conversion to WordPress using a plugin, allowing your prospective customers to quickly and easily determine the cost of your products.
WordPress Free Currency Converting Plugin – Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free!
Plugin features include the following:
- In-line converter
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, like 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 online store plugins such as WooCommerce & Shopp.
- Automatic local currency determination
- Translation support
Important: This 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. Ask your webhosting support team 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” …
When the plugin has been installed and activated, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your admin menu …
The plugin settings page provides a number of configuration settings …
For example, you can select a base currency from a drop-down menu. The default base currency is ’USD’ …
You can specify which data provider you want to use from the drop-down menu in the ‘Provider’ section. The default selection is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can choose one of the other options, like European Central Bank or Google Finance …
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 to update the exchange rates by choosing an option from the Update Rates dropdown menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which is an open-source library of Javascript code that allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (e.g. WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to change the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Edit the remainder of the plugin settings and remember to click the Save Changes button when finished …
When your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily start adding currency conversion to any WP page or post using shortcodes.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, JPY, etc …) with the Currencyr plugin.
Using Currencyr Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into WP pages, posts and widgets without touching your web templates using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to posts and pages:
Let’s say that you sell a product online for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to display this price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your page.
To display this information, you will need to add the following shortcode to your page content …
Note: You can also insert prices in dollars and cents (for example, 19.95, 47.00, 544.97, etc …)
The example below shows how the above shortcode will look once you have inserted it into a page or post …
After publishing your information, the currency conversion will then appear like this …
Using this example, let’s now translate the same price into multiple currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode looks when inserted into a page …
After publishing your page or post, the currency conversion will then appear as you can see below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol within this plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you want to specify a different base currency than the one selected as your default.
For example, say you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your website targeted to non-European visitors (e.g. Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the above shortcode appears when added to your content …
After publishing your content, your converted currency will then appear like this …
Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your website’s sidebar using the Currencyr widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar area, select Appearance > Widgets in your WP admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to the Active Widgets location …
Configure the widget settings as shown below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to update your settings …
Your currency conversion tool will now display on your site’s sidebar with the settings you have specified …
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 several currencies.
You can select a different symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings field.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your prices using a forward slash as you can see in the example below …
If you choose another symbol and resave your settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
WordPress E-Commerce
As stated earlier, the plugin can be integrated with a number of WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: plugin site)
Congratulations! Now you can go and easily add a currency converter to your WordPress website.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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