Are you planning to set up an e-commerce site, or sell goods or services online? If so, then it’s a good idea to think about providing your web visitors with currency conversion.
Currency conversion lets your customers translate international currency amounts into their local currency at the purchase or checkout stage. It also allows your visitors and customers to view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their own home currency.
One great benefit of displaying currency conversion is that it lets your customers see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, making it it easier for visitors to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is powered by WordPress, you can add a currency conversion plugin to WordPress, allowing your prospective customers to quickly perform currency conversions to determine the cost of your products.
Currencyr – Currency Converting Tool For WordPress
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free!
Some of the many features of this plugin include the following:
- In-line converter
- Supports several exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo! and Open Exchange Rates
- Supports Shortcodes
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with various e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency detection
- Supports full translations
Important: This plugin needs PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP on your server. Ask your web host to update your PHP.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WordPress 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 selecting Currencyr from your admin user menu …
The plugin settings screen provides several configuration settings …
For example, you can choose your base currency from a drop-down menu if you want a different currency than the default option (USD) …
Similarly, you can choose any supported data provider from the dropdown menu in the Provider section. The default selection is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can choose another option, like FoxRate or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select ‘Open Exchange Rates’, you will need to obtain an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can select how frequently you would like to update the currency exchange rates by selecting 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 (like WP plugins).
If you have no reason to edit the jQuery settings, just ignore this section …
Configure the rest of the plugin settings and remember to click the ‘Save Changes’ button when you have finished configuring this page …
Once you have finished configuring your plugin settings, you can add currency conversion to any WP post or page 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, NZD, ZAR, etc …) with this plugin.
Using Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to posts, pages and widgets without having to edit your web templates using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to your WordPress posts and pages:
Let’s say that you are selling an item on your website for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would like to show the price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your product sales page.
All you need to do is add the following shortcode to your post or page …
Note: You can also display pricing in dollars and cents (for example, 89.95, 97.00, 129.10, etc …)
The example below shows how the shortcode looks when added to a page or post …
After publishing the post, your converted currency will then display as you can see in the example below …
Using the same example, let’s also display the same amount into multiple 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 appears when you add it to a post …
Once the page has been published, the currency conversion will then appear as seen in the example below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol within the Currencyr plugin.
Now, suppose you want to use a different base currency than the one you have selected as the default.
For example, if you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your website targeted to non-European visitors (e.g. Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The example below shows how the above shortcode appears when added to a page …
Once the content has been published, your currency conversion will then display like this …
Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your site’s sidebar menu using the plugin’s widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets in your WordPress admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to an ‘Active Widgets’ location …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the example below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click Save to update your settings …
The currency conversion tool will now appear on your sidebar menu with the settings 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 a symbol of your choice 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 with a forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you modify the symbol and resave your settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
Integration With WordPress e-Commerce Platforms
As mentioned earlier, the plugin integrates with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image sourced from plugin site)
And there you have it! Now you can go and 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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