Are you planning to set up an e-commerce site using WordPress, or sell your products internationally? If so, then it’s a good idea to think about providing users with a currency conversion service.
Currency conversion software lets your prospective customers have the price of an international currency amount converted into their home currency at the point of sale. It also lets visitors see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their home currency.
One great benefit of adding currency conversion to your site is that it allows your customers to see 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 your site is built using WordPress, you can add currency conversion via a plugin to WordPress, allowing your customers to quickly calculate the cost of your products.
Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a visually attractive converter tooltip. And, it’s 100% free!
This plugin includes many great features like:
- In-line converter
- Supports several exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Can be integrated with various e-store plugins like WP-eCommerce & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically determines local currency
- Translation support
Important: This plugin requires 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. Alternatively, ask your web hosting provider to update your PHP.
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You can install the plugin from your WP admin area 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 choosing Currencyr from your WP administration menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings screen …
For example, you can choose your base currency from a drop-down menu if you prefer to use something other than the default option ’United States Dollar’ …
You can select which data provider you want to use from a drop-down menu. The default option is Yahoo Finance, but you can select 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, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can specify how frequently you would like to update the currency exchange rates by selecting an option from the Update Rates drop-down menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (e.g. WP plugins).
If you have no reason to modify the jQuery settings, leave these as they are …
Configure the remainder of the settings according to your preferences and click ‘Save Changes’ when done …
Once your plugin settings have been configured, you can start adding currency conversion to WordPress blog’s pages and posts using shortcodes and widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the end of this tutorial to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, JPY, etc …) with the Currencyr plugin.
Shortcodes
You can easily add currency conversion to pages, posts and widgets without editing code using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WP posts and pages:
Let’s say that you sell your products for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to show the price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your product sales page.
To do this, you will need to add the following shortcode to your page content …
Note: You can also insert amounts in dollars and cents (e.g. 165.49, 189.00, 129.10, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how your shortcode looks after being added to the page …
After publishing your page, the converted currency will then appear as you can see in the example below …
Using the above example, let’s now translate the same amount into multiple currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode appears when you add it to your content …
After publishing your page, your currency conversion will then appear as shown below …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol with this plugin.
Now, suppose you would like to select a different base currency than the one set as your default.
For example, if you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your e-commerce pages targeted to non-European visitors (like Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The screenshot below now shows how the above shortcode appears when you add it to a post …
Once the page has been published, the converted currency amounts will then appear as you can see in the example below …
Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your site’s sidebar section using the plugin’s widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar menu, choose Appearance > Widgets in your WordPress dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to an ‘Active Widgets’ location …
Configure the widget settings as shown below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click Save to save your settings …
The currency converter tool will now display on the sidebar menu with the options you have specified when configuring the widget …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional 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) …
Displays your currency values separated by a forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you change the symbol and resave your plugin settings …
Your site visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
WordPress E-Commerce
As mentioned earlier, the Currencyr plugin can be integrated with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: plugin website)
Congratulations! 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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