Are you planning to set up an e-commerce site using WordPress, or sell goods or services to an overseas customer base? If so, then it’s a good idea to think about providing your potential customers with the convenience of currency conversion on your e-commerce website.
Currency converting tools allow your prospects to translate foreign currency pricing to their local currency at the buying or checkout stage. It also allows your visitors and customers to see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their home currency.
One great benefit of putting currency conversion on your site is that it allows customers to view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own home currency, making it it easier for customers to work out their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, it’s easy to add currency conversion using a plugin to currency conversion to your site via a plugin, allowing your prospective customers to quickly understand the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – Currency Conversion Plugin For WP Sites
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. It’s also free to install and use on your web site.
This currency conversion plugin includes a number of practical features like:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, like Yahoo! & FoxRates
- Supports Shortcodes
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Supports integration with various e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can determine local currency automatically
- Full translation support
Important: This plugin needs 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 upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WordPress dashboard 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 administration menu …
The plugin settings area provides many configuration options …
For example, you can choose your base currency from a drop-down menu if you prefer to use a different currency than the default option ‘USD’ …
Similarly, you can choose which data provider you want to use from the dropdown menu in the ‘Provider’ section. The default provider is Yahoo Finance, but you can also select another option, like European Central Bank or Google Finance …
Note: If you select Open Exchange Rates, you will need to enter an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can select how frequently you want to update the exchange rates by selecting an option from the Update Rates drop-down menu …
The 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 WP plugins).
Unless you have a reason to change the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Configure the rest of the plugin settings and don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button when done …
After you have configured your plugin settings, you can easily add currency conversion to your WP pages or posts using shortcodes.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, JPY, etc …) with the Currencyr plugin.
Currencyr Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into WP pages, posts and widgets with no coding knowledge or skills using shortcodes.
Below are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to your WordPress posts and pages:
Let’s say that you retail goods on your site for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show your amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your product sales page.
To display this information, you simply need to insert the shortcode below into your post or page …
Note: You can also display amounts in dollars and cents (e.g. 89.95, 29.95, 129.10, etc …)
The example below shows how the shortcode will look when added to a page …
Once your post or page has been published, your currency conversion will display like this …
Using this example, let’s now display the same price into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use the shortcode below (you can add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode appears when inserted into a page …
Once your post has been published, the currency conversion will then appear as shown in the screenshot below …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol with the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s say that you would like to specify a different base currency than the one set as the default.
For example, say you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your website targeted to non-European customers (e.g. Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode looks when you add it to a page …
After publishing the page or post, your currency conversion will then display as seen below …
Using The Plugin Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your site’s sidebar menu using the plugin’s widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets in the WP user 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 the currency codes you would like displaying on your widget separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
Your currency conversion tool will now appear on the sidebar with the options 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 using the forward slash as you can see in the example below …
If you modify this symbol and resave your settings …
Your site visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
Integration With WP e-Commerce Software
As mentioned earlier, the Currencyr plugin integrates with a number of WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: plugin website)
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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