Do you plan to set up a WordPress-based e-commerce site, or sell products online? If so, you may want to think about providing users with the convenience of currency conversion on your e-commerce web site.
Currency conversion allows your prospective customers to translate foreign currency amounts into their home currency at the point of sale. It also allows your visitors to view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their local currency.
One advantage of adding currency conversion is that it lets your customers view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for visitors to calculate their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, you can add a currency converter to currency conversion to WordPress via a plugin, allowing your prospective customers to quickly and easily determine the cost of your products.
Currencyr – Free Currency Converting Plugin For WP Sites
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a visually attractive converter tooltip. And, it’s completely free to install and use on your site.
Great plugin features include:
- Inline converter
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, such as Google, Open Exchange Rates & European Central Bank
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with a number of online shopping plugins such as WooCommerce, Shop & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency detection
- Support for language translations
Important: The Currencyr plugin needs your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install 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 server installation if required.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WordPress dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins area and clicking “Install Now” …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your WordPress dashboard menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings area …
For example, you can select your base currency from a dropdown menu. The default option is (‘USD’) …
You can specify any supported data provider from a dropdown menu. The default selection is Yahoo Finance, but you can also choose another option, like European Central Bank or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select Open Exchange Rates, an API (Application Programming Interface) will be required …
You can select how frequently you want the currency exchange rates to be updated by choosing an option from the ‘Update Rates’ dropdown menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to modify the jQuery settings, leave these as they are …
Configure the rest of the plugin settings according to your preferences and click ‘Save Changes’ when done …
When your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily start adding currency conversion to all of your WP posts using shortcodes.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, JPY, etc …) with the Currencyr plugin.
Currencyr Shortcodes
You can insert currency conversion into posts, pages and widgets with no web coding skills using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to pages and posts:
Let’s say that you are selling a product on your website for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would like to display the conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your product information page.
To do this, just add the following shortcode to your post or page …
Note: You can also add pricing in dollars and cents (for example, 188.35, 37.95, 399.99, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the above shortcode looks after being added to a product page …
Once your post or page has been published, the currency conversion will display like this …
Using the same example, let’s also convert the same price into multiple currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
The screenshot below now shows how the above shortcode appears when added to your content …
After publishing the post, the converted currency amounts will then display as you can see below …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn how to change the currency separator symbol in the Currencyr plugin.
Now, suppose you would like to specify a different base currency than the one set as your default.
For example, say you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your website targeted to non-European visitors (like Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
Here’s how the shortcode looks when inserted into your content …
After publishing your post, your currency conversion will then display like this …
Plugin Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your website or blog’s sidebar section using the Currencyr widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets from your WP user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to the ‘Active Widgets’ area …
Configure the widget options as shown in the screenshot below (add any currency codes you want displaying on your widget separated by a comma), and click Save to save your settings …
The currency converter tool will now display on your website’s sidebar with the options you have selected …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin allows you to specify the symbol to display as the currency separator when using multiple currencies.
You can change the symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings field.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by a forward slash as shown below …
If you choose another symbol and resave your settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
e-Commerce Platform Integration
As mentioned earlier, the plugin can be integrated with various WP-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(above image sourced from Currencyr plugin site)
Congratulations! 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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