Do you plan to set up an e-commerce site, or sell goods or services worldwide? If so, then you may want to think about providing your prospects with a currency conversion tool.
Currency conversion lets your visitors have the cost of an international currency transaction converted to their local currency at the purchase or checkout phase. It also allows visitors and customers to view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their own local currency.
One great benefit of adding currency conversion is that it lets customers view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for customers to work out their costs and expenses.
If your site is built with WordPress, it’s quite simple to add a currency conversion plugin to WordPress, allowing your customers to quickly and easily perform currency conversions to determine the cost of your products.
Currencyr – Currency Converter For WP Sites
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique converter tooltip. It’s also free to install and use on your WP website.
This plugin features:
- In-line converter
- Supports various exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- Supports Shortcodes
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Supports integration with various online store plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can determine local currency automatically
- Supports full language translations
Important: This plugin needs PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP. Ask your web hosting support team to update your PHP.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WordPress dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins area and clicking the ”Install Now” button …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can get to the plugin’s settings page by choosing Currencyr from your WordPress dashboard area …
This takes you to the plugin settings section …
For example, you can select a base currency from a dropdown menu. The default base currency is ’United States Dollar’ …
Similarly, you can specify any supported data provider from the drop-down menu in the Provider section. The default provider is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can choose another provider, like FoxRate or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, you will need to obtain an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can specify how frequently you would like the currency exchange rates to update by selecting an option from the Update Rates drop-down menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (e.g. WordPress plugins).
Unless you have a reason to modify the jQuery settings, leave them as they are …
Edit the rest of the settings and remember to click ‘Save Changes’ when you have configured this section …
When you have configured your settings, you can easily start adding currency conversion to any WordPress page or post using a shortcode.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the end of this tutorial to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, JPY, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
Using Plugin Shortcodes
You can easily add currency conversion to posts, pages and widgets without touching your web templates using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WordPress posts and pages:
Let’s say that you sell a product online for a set amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show the price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your page.
All you need to do is add the following shortcode into your page content …
Note: You can also display pricing in dollars and cents (e.g. 155.25, 197.00, 129.10, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how your shortcode looks when added to a post …
Once your information has been published, the currency conversion will then display as seen in the screenshot below …
Using the above example, let’s also convert the same price into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode looks when added to a post …
Once the post has been published, your converted currency will then appear as you can see in the example below …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol in this plugin.
Now, suppose you want to specify a different base currency than the one set as your 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 non-European customers (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 …
After publishing your post or page, your converted currency amounts will then display as seen in the example below …
Plugin Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your website’s sidebar using a widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar menu, choose Appearance > Widgets from the WP dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to the ‘Active Widgets’ location …
Configure the widget settings as shown below (add any currency codes you would like displaying on your widget separated by a comma), and click ‘Save’ to update your settings …
The currency converter will now show on your sidebar menu with the settings you have specified when configuring the widget …
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 several currencies.
You can change the symbol in the Multiple Separator settings section.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency amounts using a forward slash as shown below …
If you change the symbol and update your settings …
Your site visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
Using The Currencyr Plugin With WP-Compatible e-Commerce Platforms
As stated earlier, the plugin can be integrated with a number of WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: plugin site)
And there you have it! Now you can go and easily add a currency converter to your WordPress website.
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