Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce website or making goods and services available for sale to a global market? If so, you may want to consider providing your prospects with currency conversion.
Currency converting software tools let your visitors convert foreign currency transactions to their local currency at the point of sale. It also allows customers to view the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their local currency.
One benefit of adding currency conversion to your site is that it allows visitors to view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for visitors to calculate their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, you can add a currency converter to your site, allowing your customers to easily understand the cost of your products.
Currencyr
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 web site.
The Currencyr useful plugin includes features such as:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports several exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates & FoxRates
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with various e-store plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically detects local currency
- Supports full translations
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 on your server. Ask your web host to upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WP dashboard by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking the “Install Now” button …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can access the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your WordPress administration menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings area …
For example, you can choose a base currency from the Base Currency dropdown menu. The default currency is ’USD’ …
Similarly, you can specify 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 choose one of the other options, such as European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) will be required …
You can choose how often you would like to update the exchange rates by selecting an option from the Update Rates drop-down menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (like WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to edit the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Edit the remainder of the plugin settings and click the ‘Save Changes’ button when done …
After you have configured your plugin settings, you can easily add currency conversion to all of your WP posts or pages using a shortcode.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, CAD, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
How To Use Shortcodes
You can easily add currency conversion to WP pages, posts and widgets with no programming skills or knowledge using shortcodes.
Below are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to posts and pages:
Let’s say that you retail an item on your website for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to show this conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your product sales page.
All you need to do is insert the shortcode below to your page content …
Note: You can also display pricing in dollars and cents (e.g. 16.95, 37.95, 1356.87, etc …)
The example below shows how the above shortcode looks when inserting it into your post …
After your page or post has been published, your converted currency will then appear like this …
Using this example, let’s now display the same amount into multiple currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (you can add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode appears when added to a post …
After publishing your page, the converted currency amounts will then display like this …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol in this plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you would like to select a different base currency than the one you have set as your default.
For example, if you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your website targeted to customers in countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the shortcode looks when inserted into a post …
After publishing the information, the currency conversion will then appear as you can see in the example below …
Currencyr Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your site’s sidebar section using a widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets in the WordPress dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to an Active Widgets area …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the example below (add the currency codes you want displaying on your widget separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
Your currency converter tool will now appear on your sidebar menu with the settings you have specified when configuring the widget …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the Currencyr plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you specify a symbol of your choice 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, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by a forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you select another symbol and resave your plugin settings …
Your website visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Integration
As mentioned earlier, the Currencyr plugin can be integrated with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, Shopp and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: plugin site)
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add currency conversion to your e-commerce site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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