Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce website or making products available for sale internationally? If so, then it’s a good idea to think about providing your potential customers with currency conversion.
Currency converting tools allow your customers to convert international currency prices to their local currency when purchasing or checking out products online. It also allows your visitors and customers to view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their local currency.
The obvious advantage of displaying currency conversion is that it lets your customers view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for purchasers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is built with WordPress, it’s really easy and simple to add currency conversion via a plugin to currency conversion to your WP web site using a plugin, allowing your visitors to quickly and easily work out the cost of your goods.
WordPress Currency Converting Plugin – Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a unique converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free!
This useful plugin features:
- In-line converter
- Supports several exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with various e-store plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically determines local currency
- Translation support
Note: The Currencyr plugin needs your server to be running 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 provider to upgrade your PHP server installation.
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You can install the plugin from your WordPress admin area by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking “Install Now” …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can visit the plugin’s settings section by choosing Currencyr from your WordPress admin user area …
This takes you to the plugin settings screen …
For example, you can select your base currency from a drop-down menu if you want something other than the default option ’US Dollar’ …
You can choose a data provider from the dropdown menu in the Provider section. The default option is Yahoo Finance, but you can also select another option, such as European Central Bank or Google Finance …
Note: If you choose Open Exchange Rates, you will need to obtain an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can select how often you would like the exchange rates to be updated by specifying an option from the ‘Update Rates’ dropdown menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which is an open-source library of Javascript code that lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WP plugins).
If you have no reason to change the jQuery settings, leave them as they are …
Configure the remainder of the plugin settings and click the ‘Save Changes’ button when done …
After your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily add currency conversion to your WordPress website’s posts and pages using a shortcode.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, JPY, etc …) in this plugin.
How To Use Plugin Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to pages, posts and widgets with no technical skills using shortcodes.
Below are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to your WP pages and posts:
Let’s say that you retail your product for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to display your price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your product sales page.
To do this, just insert the shortcode below to your post or page …
Note: You can also display prices in dollars and cents (e.g. 89.95, 79.45, 129.10, etc …)
The example below shows how the shortcode will look when added to your page or post …
After publishing your page, the currency conversion will appear like this …
Using the same example, let’s also display the same amount into different currency formats.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode looks when added to your content …
Once the information has been published, the currency conversion will then appear as you can see below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol within the Currencyr plugin.
Now, suppose you want to specify a different base currency than the one you have selected as your default.
For example, if you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to non-European visitors (e.g. Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
Here’s how the above shortcode looks when you add it to a page …
After publishing the page or post, your converted currency will then display as seen in the example below …
Plugin Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your site’s sidebar using the Currencyr widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar area, select Appearance > Widgets from your WP dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to the Active Widgets area …
Configure the widget options as shown below (add the currency codes you would like to display on your widget separated by commas), and click Save to update your settings …
The currency converter will now display on your site’s sidebar with the options you have selected …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful information about using the plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin allows you to specify the symbol to display as the currency separator when using several currencies.
You can change the symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings field.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your prices with the forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you change this symbol and resave your plugin settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
Integration With e-Commerce Software
As described earlier, the Currencyr plugin can be integrated with various WP-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image sourced from Currencyr plugin site)
And there you have it! Now you know how to 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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