Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce site or selling products to an international audience? If so, then here’s a good idea: think about providing users with currency conversion.
Currency converting tools let your customers convert foreign currency transactions into their local currency at the purchase or checkout phase. It also lets visitors and customers view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their home currency.
One advantage of adding currency conversion is that it allows your customers to view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for customers to calculate their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, it’s really simple to add currency conversion via a plugin to WordPress, allowing your prospective customers to quickly perform currency conversions to determine the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – Currency Converter For WordPress
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique converter tooltip. And, it’s also free!
The Currencyr plugin includes features such as:
- In-line converter
- Supports various exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo! & Open Exchange Rates
- Supports Shortcodes
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Supports integration with a number of online store plugins such as WooCommerce & Shopp.
- Automatically determines local currency
- Supports full translations
Important: This plugin needs your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed on your server. Ask your web host to update your PHP.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WP admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins screen and clicking “Install Now” …
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, you can access the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your admin user menu …
The plugin settings page provides various configuration settings …
For example, you can select a base currency from the Base Currency dropdown menu if you prefer something other than the default option ‘USD’ …
You can also select which data provider you want to use from a dropdown menu. The default provider is Yahoo Finance, but you can also choose another provider, like European Central Bank or Google Finance …
Note: If you select Open Exchange Rates, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can select how often you would like the currency exchange rates to update by specifying an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WordPress plugins).
Unless you have a reason to modify the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Configure the rest of the plugin settings and click Save Changes when you have finished configuring all of your options …
Once you have configured your plugin settings, you can start adding currency conversion to your WordPress site’s pages and posts using a shortcode.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, JPY, etc …) with this plugin.
Plugin Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to WP posts, pages and widgets with no coding skills or knowledge 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 are selling your product for a set amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to display your price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
To do this, you simply need to add the shortcode below to your post or page …
Note: You can also insert pricing in dollars and cents (for example, 19.95, 97.00, 1356.87, etc …)
The example below shows how the above shortcode should look once you have inserted it into your product page …
When the post has been published, your converted currency amount will then appear as you can see below …
Using the above example, let’s also translate the same price into multiple currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode looks when you add it to a page …
Once your post or page has been published, the currency conversion will then display like this …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol within this plugin.
Now, suppose you would like to specify a different base currency than the one selected 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 non-European visitors (for example, Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The screenshot below now shows how the shortcode appears when added to your content …
After publishing your content, the currency conversion will then display as seen below …
How To Use The Plugin Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your website’s sidebar menu using a widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar menu, choose Appearance > Widgets in your WordPress admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to the ‘Active Widgets’ location …
Configure the widget options as shown in the screenshot below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click Save to update your settings …
Your currency conversion tool will now display on the sidebar with the settings you have specified …
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 section.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by a forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you change this symbol and resave your settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
Using The Plugin With WP-Compatible e-Commerce Software
As described earlier, the plugin can be integrated with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as 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 e-commerce web site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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