Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce web site or making goods available for sale internationally? If so, then it’s a great idea to think about providing users with a currency conversion service.
Currency converting tools let your customers translate foreign currency pricing to their local currency at the point of sale. It also allows customers to view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their own local currency.
One great advantage of adding currency conversion is that it allows customers to view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own home currency, making it it easier for visitors to work out their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, it’s easy to add currency conversion via a plugin to your web site, allowing your prospective customers to easily understand the cost of your products.
Currencyr – WP Free Currency Converter
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. It’s also free to install and use on your WP website.
Plugin features include the following:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports several exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with a number of e-store plugins such as WooCommerce, Shop & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically determines local currency
- Support for language translations
Important: The Currencyr plugin needs PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP. Ask your web hosting support team to upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins area and clicking the “Install” button …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your WP admin user menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings screen …
For example, you can choose your base currency from a dropdown menu if you want something other than the default option ‘USD’ …
You can select which data provider you want to use from a drop-down menu. The default selection is Yahoo Finance, but you can choose one of the other options, such as European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) is required …
You can specify how often you would like the 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 (like WordPress plugins).
Unless you have a reason to edit the jQuery settings, leave these as they are …
Edit the rest of the settings and don’t forget to click ‘Save Changes’ when finished …
After you have finished configuring your plugin settings, you can easily start adding currency conversion to any WordPress page or post using a shortcode.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, CAD, etc …) with the Currencyr plugin.
Shortcodes
You can insert currency conversion into pages, posts and widgets without editing code using shortcodes.
Below are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to pages and posts:
Let’s say that you retail an item on your site for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to display this amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your product sales page.
All you need to do is add the shortcode below to your page content …
Note: You can also display amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 16.95, 97.00, 2499.99, etc …)
The example below shows how the above shortcode looks when inserting it into the post or page …
After your content has been published, your currency conversion will appear like this …
Using the same example, let’s now convert the same amount into multiple currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode appears when added to a post …
Once the post or page has been published, the converted currency will then display like this …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn how to change the currency separator symbol within the Currencyr plugin.
Now, suppose you would like to use a different base currency than the one selected as your default.
For example, if you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to non-European customers (e.g. Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
Here’s how the shortcode appears when added to a page …
After publishing the post or page, the converted currency amounts will then appear as shown below …
How To Use The Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your site’s sidebar menu using the Currencyr widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar menu, choose Appearance > Widgets from the WP user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to the Active Widgets area …
Configure the widget options as shown in the screenshot below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
The currency converter tool will now appear on your website’s sidebar menu with the options you have specified …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful information about using the plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you 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 currency values with a forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you change this symbol and update your settings …
Your site visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
Using The Currencyr Plugin With WordPress-Compatible e-Commerce Software
As stated earlier, the plugin integrates with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, Shopp and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: plugin website)
And there you have it! Now you can go and easily add a currency converter to your e-commerce site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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