Do you plan to set up an e-commerce site, or sell goods worldwide? If so, then here’s a great idea: think about providing your potential customers with currency conversion.
Currency conversion allows your prospective customers to convert international currency prices into their local currency when checking out products on e-commerce sites. It also lets your visitors and customers see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their home currency.
One great advantage of adding currency conversion is that it lets customers see 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 you are a WordPress user, you can add currency conversion using a plugin to currency conversion to WordPress via a plugin, allowing your site visitors to quickly determine the cost of your products.
Currencyr – WordPress Currency Conversion Plugin
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique converter tooltip. And, it’s completely free to install and use on your WP website or blog.
Useful plugin features include the following:
- Inline converter
- Supports various exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo! & FoxRates
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with a number of e-commerce plugins such as WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can determine local currency automatically
- Supports full translations
Note: This plugin requires your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed. Alternatively, ask your web hosting company to upgrade your PHP server installation.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WP admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins screen and clicking the “Install Now” button …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your dashboard area …
The plugin settings screen provides several configuration settings …
For example, you can choose a base currency from the Base Currency drop-down menu. The default currency is ’USD’ …
Similarly, you can choose which data provider you want to use from a dropdown menu. The default selection is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can also select one of the other options, such as FoxRate or Google Finance …
Note: If you select ‘Open Exchange Rates’, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can choose how frequently you want the currency exchange rates to update by choosing 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 (like WP plugins).
Unless you have a reason to modify the jQuery settings, you can just ignore this section …
Edit the rest of the settings and click the Save Changes button when done …
Once you have configured your plugin settings, you can easily add currency conversion to any WordPress 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, AUD, JPY, etc …) with this plugin.
Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to WP posts, pages and widgets without having to mess with your web templates using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to posts and pages:
Let’s say that you are selling your product for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to show the amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your page.
To display this information, you will need to insert the following shortcode to your page content …
Note: You can also insert pricing in dollars and cents (for example, 19.95, 47.00, 400.00, etc …)
The example below shows how the shortcode will look after being added to the post …
After publishing the page, the currency conversion will then appear as shown in the screenshot below …
Using the above example, let’s now convert the same price into different 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 looks when you add it to a post …
Once your page or post has been published, the converted currency will then display like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the end of this tutorial to learn how to change the currency separator symbol with this plugin.
Now, suppose you want to select a different base currency than the one selected as the 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 (for example, Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
Here’s how the shortcode looks when added to a page …
After publishing the post, your currency conversion will then appear as shown in the example below …
Using The Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your website or blog’s sidebar using the Currencyr widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar area, select Appearance > Widgets from the WordPress user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to the ‘Active Widgets’ location …
Configure the widget options as shown in the example below (add any currency codes you want displaying on your widget separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to update your settings …
The currency converter tool will now show on the 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 allows you to specify the symbol to display as the currency separator when using several currencies.
You can change the 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 shown below …
If you modify this symbol and update your plugin settings …
Your site visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
WordPress E-Commerce
As stated earlier, the plugin can be integrated with a number of WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(above image sourced from plugin site)
And there you have it! Now you know how to 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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