Do you plan to sell products online worldwide? If so, then it’s a great idea to consider providing your web visitors with currency conversion.
Currency conversion lets your customers translate foreign currency pricing to their local currency when purchasing products on e-commerce sites. It also lets your visitors view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their home currency.
One advantage of adding currency conversion to your website is that it allows visitors to see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for purchasers to work out their costs and expenses.
If your site is powered by WordPress, you can add currency conversion using a plugin to your website, allowing your visitors to quickly and easily work out the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – WP Currency Conversion Plugin
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free!
The Currencyr useful plugin features:
- In-line conversion tool
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates & European Central Bank
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with various online shopping plugins such as WP-eCommerce & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically determines local currency
- Supports full translations
Note: The Currencyr plugin requires your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed on your server. Ask your web host to check and upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins screen and clicking “Install Now” …
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your admin menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings page …
For example, you can select your base currency from a drop-down menu if you want something other than the default option ‘USD’ …
Similarly, you can select any supported data provider from a dropdown menu. The default option is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can also choose one of the other options, like European Central Bank or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can select how often you want to update the currency exchange rates by selecting an option from the ‘Update Rates’ dropdown menu …
The 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 change the jQuery settings, leave these as they are …
Configure the rest of the settings and remember to click the Save Changes button when you have configured all of your options …
After your plugin settings have been configured, you can start adding currency conversion to your WordPress blog’s pages using widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, JPY, etc …) in this plugin.
Using Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to WP pages, posts and widgets without editing your web templates using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to your WP pages and posts:
Let’s say that you are selling a product online for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to display this price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
To do this, you will need to add the shortcode below into your page content …
Note: You can also add amounts in dollars and cents (e.g. 155.25, 22.00, 544.97, etc …)
The example below shows how your shortcode should look after being inserted into your page or post …
Once your page has been published, the currency conversion will then display as shown in the screenshot below …
Using the above example, let’s also convert the same price into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use the shortcode below (you can add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode looks when inserted into your content …
After publishing your page or post, your converted currency amounts will then appear as shown in the screenshot below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol in the Currencyr plugin.
Now, suppose you want to use a different base currency than the one selected 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 customers (for example, Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the shortcode appears when added to a page …
After publishing your information, the converted currency will then appear like this …
Currencyr Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your website or blog’s sidebar section using the Currencyr widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets from your WordPress user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to the Active Widgets area …
Configure the widget settings as shown below (add any currency codes you would like displaying on your widget separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to update your settings …
The currency converter will now show on your sidebar 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 select a different symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings field.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency amounts using the forward slash as shown below …
If you select another symbol and resave your settings …
Your website visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
Integration With e-Commerce Platforms
As mentioned earlier, the plugin integrates with a number of WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce 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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