Do you plan to set up a WordPress-based e-commerce site, or sell goods and services online? If so, then here’s a great idea: think about providing your potential customers with the convenience of currency conversion on your website.
Currency converting tools let your prospective customers have the price of an international currency transaction translated into their home currency at the point of sale. It also allows your customers to see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their local currency.
The obvious advantage of showing currency conversion is that it lets visitors view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for purchasers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, you can add currency conversion via a plugin to your WP website or blog, allowing your customers to easily understand the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – Currency Converter For WordPress
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a unique converter tooltip. It’s also free to install and use on your WordPress website or blog.
This currency conversion plugin features:
- In-line conversion tool
- Supports several exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates and FoxRates
- Supports Shortcodes
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Can be integrated with a number of e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, Shop and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can detect local currency automatically
- Supports full 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 currently have an older version of PHP installed on your server. Ask your web host to upgrade your PHP server installation.
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You can install the currency conversion 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 configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your admin user menu …
The plugin settings screen provides various configuration options …
For example, you can choose a base currency from a drop-down menu. The default currency is (‘USD’) …
Similarly, you can choose a data provider from the drop-down menu in the ‘Provider’ section. The default selection is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can select another option, like European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose Open Exchange Rates, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can select how often you would like to update the currency exchange rates by selecting an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down 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 (like WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to edit the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Edit the rest of the settings to suit your needs and don’t forget to click the Save Changes button when done …
Once your plugin settings have been configured, you can start adding currency conversion to any of your WordPress blog’s posts using a shortcode.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, JPY, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
How To Use Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into WP posts, pages and widgets with no programming skills using shortcodes.
Below are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to pages and posts:
Let’s say that you retail a product on your site for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to show the price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your page.
To display this information, just insert the shortcode below into your page content …
Note: You can also insert pricing in dollars and cents (e.g. 175.00, 29.95, 400.00, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode looks once you have inserted it into the post …
Once the information has been published, the converted currency will appear as seen below …
Using the above example, let’s also convert the same amount into different currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
The example below now shows how the shortcode looks when you add it to a page …
After publishing your information, your currency conversion will then appear as you can see below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol in this plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you want 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 customers from countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The example below now shows how the shortcode looks when added to a page …
Once the content has been published, your converted currency amounts will then display as seen in the screenshot below …
Plugin Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your website’s sidebar using the plugin’s widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets in your WP dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to an ‘Active Widgets’ area …
Configure the widget options as shown below (add the currency codes you want displaying on your widget separated by commas), and click Save to save your settings …
The currency converter tool will now display on your website’s sidebar with the settings 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 a symbol of your choice to display as the currency separator when using multiple 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 with the forward slash as shown below …
If you modify this symbol and update your settings …
Your site visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Integration
As described earlier, the plugin integrates with a number of WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: plugin site)
Congratulations! Now you can go and easily add currency conversion to your WordPress site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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