Are you planning to set up a WordPress-based e-commerce site, or sell any products online? If so, then you should think about providing your potential customers with the convenience of currency conversion on your e-commerce site.
Currency converting tools let your visitors have the cost of a foreign currency transaction translated to their home currency at the point of sale. It also allows your customers to view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their own local currency.
The obvious advantage of showing currency conversion is that it lets visitors see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, making it it easier for purchasers to work out their costs and expenses.
If your site is built with WordPress, it’s quite simple to add currency conversion using a plugin to WordPress, allowing your visitors to easily perform currency conversions to determine the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – WP Free Currency Converting Plugin
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a unique converter tooltip. And, it’s completely free to install and use on your site.
Plugin features include the following:
- In-line conversion tool
- Supports various exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Google & European Central Bank
- Supports Shortcodes
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Supports integration with various online store plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically detects local currency
- Support for language translations
Important: The Currencyr plugin needs your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP on your server. Alternatively, ask your web host to check and upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WP dashboard by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking “Install Now” …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your dashboard area …
This takes you to the plugin settings area …
For example, you can choose your base currency from a drop-down menu. The default option is ’United States Dollar’ …
You can specify which data provider you want to use from the drop-down menu in the Provider section. The default provider is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can choose another option, such as European Central Bank or Google Finance …
Note: If you choose ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) is required …
You can select how frequently you want to update the exchange rates 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 (e.g. WordPress plugins).
Unless you have a reason to change the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Edit the remainder of the plugin settings according to your own preferences and click ‘Save Changes’ when done …
After you have configured your plugin settings, you can easily start adding currency conversion to WordPress pages or posts using a shortcode.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, ZAR, etc …) with the Currencyr plugin.
Using Plugin Shortcodes
You can easily add currency conversion to WP posts, pages and widgets with no web coding skills using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to your WP posts and pages:
Let’s say that you sell a product on your site for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would like to display your conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
All you need to do is add the following shortcode to your page content …
Note: You can also insert pricing in dollars and cents (e.g. 6.95, 197.00, 399.99, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how your shortcode will look when inserting it into your page …
After publishing the page, your converted currency amount will appear as you can see in the example below …
Using the same example, let’s also convert the same amount into different currency formats.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
The example below now shows how the above shortcode looks when inserted into your content …
After publishing the page or post, 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, let’s suppose that you would like to select a different base currency than the one selected as the default.
For example, if you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your e-commerce pages targeted to visitors from countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The example below now shows how the above shortcode appears when inserted into a post …
After publishing the page or post, the converted currency amounts will then display like this …
Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your website or blog’s sidebar area using the Currencyr widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar area, choose Appearance > Widgets in the WP dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to the Active Widgets area …
Configure the widget settings as shown below (add any currency codes you want to display on your widget separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to update your settings …
Your currency converter will now display on your site’s sidebar with the options 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 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, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by the forward slash as shown below …
If you change this symbol and resave your settings …
Your web visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
Integration With e-Commerce Software
As stated earlier, the Currencyr plugin integrates with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: Currencyr plugin site)
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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