Do you plan to set up a WordPress-based e-commerce site, or sell goods worldwide? If so, you should probably consider providing your potential customers with the convenience of currency conversion on your e-commerce website.
Currency conversion software lets your customers have the price of an international currency transaction converted into their home currency at the buying or checkout stage. It also lets visitors and customers view the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their own local currency.
The obvious benefit of showing currency conversion on your site is that it allows visitors to see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, making it it easier for visitors to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is built using WordPress, you can add a currency conversion plugin to your WordPress site, allowing your visitors to quickly calculate the cost of your products.
Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. It’s also free to install and use on your website.
Some of the many useful features of this useful plugin include the following:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports various exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- Supports Shortcodes
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with a number of online store plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically detects local currency
- Translation support
Note: This plugin requires your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP on your server. Alternatively, ask your web host to update your PHP.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WordPress dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins section and clicking “Install Now” …
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, you can configure the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your administration menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings section …
For example, you can select a base currency from a dropdown menu. The default currency is ’USD’ …
Similarly, you can select which data provider you want to use from a drop-down menu. The default option is Yahoo Finance, but you can also select one of the other options, such as FoxRate or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can select how frequently you want the currency exchange rates to update by selecting 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. WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to modify the jQuery settings, you can simply ignore this setting …
Edit the rest of the plugin settings and don’t forget to click Save Changes when finished …
After your plugin settings have been configured, you can add currency conversion to any of your WordPress blog’s pages using widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, JPY, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
Using Shortcodes
You can insert currency conversion into WordPress pages, posts and widgets with no web coding knowledge using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WP pages and posts:
Let’s say that you sell a product on your site for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show your price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
All you need to do is add the shortcode below to your post or page …
Note: You can also display pricing in dollars and cents (for example, 16.95, 47.00, 149.00, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode should look when inserting it into your post or page …
Once your post has been published, the converted currency will then display like this …
Using this example, let’s now translate the same amount into different currency formats.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (you can add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
The example below shows how the above shortcode looks when you add it to a post …
Once your post or page has been published, 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 within this plugin.
Now, suppose you would like to use 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 visitors in countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The example below now shows how the above shortcode looks when inserted into a post …
After publishing the page or post, the converted currency will then display like this …
Currencyr Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your website or blog’s sidebar section using the plugin’s widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar area, choose Appearance > Widgets from the WordPress dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to the Active Widgets area …
Configure the widget settings as shown below (add the currency codes you want to display on your widget separated by a comma), and click Save to update your settings …
Your currency conversion tool will now display on the sidebar menu with the settings you have selected …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful information about using the Currencyr 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 change the symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings field.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by a forward slash as you can see in the example below …
If you change this symbol and update your settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
WordPress E-Commerce
As mentioned earlier, the Currencyr plugin integrates with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: 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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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now