Do you plan to set up an e-commerce site using WordPress, or sell your products to an overseas market? If so, then here’s a great idea: think about providing your prospects with the convenience of currency conversion on your e-commerce site.
Currency conversion allows your prospects to have the price of a foreign currency amount converted into their local currency at the point of sale. It also allows visitors to see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their own home currency.
One benefit of providing currency conversion on your site is that it lets your customers see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for customers to work out their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, you can add a currency converter to your WP website, allowing your customers to quickly calculate the cost of your products.
Currencyr – WP Currency Conversion Plugin
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. And, it’s completely free!
This plugin features:
- Inline converter
- Supports a number of 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
- Supports integration with various e-store plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically detects local currency
- Translation support
Important: The Currencyr plugin requires PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP. Ask your web host to update your PHP.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WordPress dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins section and clicking the “Install” button …
When you have installed and activated the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your WordPress admin user area …
This takes you to the plugin settings section …
For example, you can select your base currency from a drop-down menu if you prefer a different currency than the default option ’USD’ …
Similarly, you can specify any supported data provider from the drop-down menu in the ‘Provider’ section. The default provider is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can also choose another provider, like FoxRate or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) will be required …
You can select how frequently you would like to update the currency exchange rates by specifying an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which is an open-source library of Javascript code that lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WordPress plugins).
Unless you have a reason to modify the jQuery settings, just ignore this option …
Configure the rest of the plugin settings to suit your needs and don’t forget to click ‘Save Changes’ when done …
Once you have finished configuring your settings, you can easily add currency conversion to any WP post using a shortcode.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, JPY, etc …) in this plugin.
How To Use Plugin Shortcodes
You can insert currency conversion into pages, posts and widgets without editing your web templates using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to posts and pages:
Let’s say that you sell your product for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to display the amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your page.
All you need to do is insert the following shortcode into your post or page …
Note: You can also insert amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 19.95, 37.95, 399.99, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how your shortcode looks once you have added it to your post …
After your post or page has been published, the converted currency will display as seen in the screenshot below …
Using this example, let’s now translate the same price into different currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
The example below now shows how the above shortcode looks when inserted into a page …
Once the information has been published, the converted currency amounts will then appear like this …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol within this plugin.
Now, suppose you want to select a different base currency than the one set as your default.
For example, say you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your e-commerce pages targeted to non-European customers (like Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The example below shows how the above shortcode looks when inserted into your content …
After publishing your content, the currency conversion will then display like this …
Plugin Widget
You can also add a currency converter to your site’s sidebar using the Currencyr widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets in the WP admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to the ‘Active Widgets’ area …
Configure the widget options as shown below (add the currency codes you want to display on your widget separated by commas), and click Save to update your settings …
The currency conversion tool will now display on your website’s sidebar 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 allows you to specify the symbol to display as the currency separator when using multiple currencies.
You can select a different symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings section.
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 change the symbol and update your plugin settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
Integration With WP e-Commerce Software
As mentioned earlier, the Currencyr plugin can be integrated with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(above image sourced from Currencyr plugin site)
And there you have it! Now you know how to easily add a currency converter to your WordPress website.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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