Do you plan to set up an e-commerce website, or sell your products to a worldwide customer base? If so, you may want to think about providing users with the convenience of currency conversion on your e-commerce website.
Currency conversion allows your prospects to translate international currency pricing to their home currency at the buying or checkout stage. It also allows visitors to view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their local currency.
The obvious advantage of showing currency conversion on your website is that it allows customers to see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for visitors to work out their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, it’s simple to add currency conversion using a plugin to WordPress, allowing your customers to quickly 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!
The Currencyr plugin includes practical features like the following:
- In-line conversion tool
- Supports various exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Google & European Central Bank
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with a number of online store plugins like WooCommerce & Shopp.
- Can detect local currency automatically
- Translation support
Important: The Currencyr plugin requires PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use 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 plugin from your WP dashboard by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking “Install Now” …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can visit the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your dashboard menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings section …
For example, you can select your base currency from a drop-down menu if you want a different currency than the default option ‘United States Dollar – (USD)’ …
You can also choose a data provider from the dropdown menu in the Provider section. The default provider is Yahoo Finance, but you can also select another provider, such as European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose ‘Open Exchange Rates’, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can select how frequently you would like to update the exchange rates 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 (e.g. WP plugins).
If you have no reason to modify the jQuery settings, just ignore this setting …
Configure the remainder of the settings and click Save Changes when you have configured this page …
After your plugin settings have been configured, you can start adding currency conversion to any WordPress 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, AUD, CAD, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
How To Use Plugin Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into pages, posts and widgets with no web coding knowledge or skills using shortcodes.
Below are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to posts and pages:
Let’s say that you sell a product online for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to display the conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
All you need to do is add the following shortcode to your post or page …
Note: You can also insert pricing in dollars and cents (e.g. 175.00, 47.00, 399.99, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how your shortcode looks once you have added it to a page …
After your post has been published, the currency conversion will then appear as you can see below …
Using the above example, let’s now translate the same price into multiple currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode appears when inserted into a page …
Once the post has been published, the converted currency will then display like this …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol with this plugin.
Now, suppose you would like to specify a different base currency than the one you have selected as your default.
For example, if you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to visitors in countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode appears when added to a page …
After publishing the post, your converted currency amounts will then appear like this …
Currencyr Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your website’s sidebar area using the Currencyr widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar area, select Appearance > Widgets in your WordPress dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to an ‘Active Widgets’ location …
Configure the widget options as shown in the example below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
The currency converter tool will now display on your website’s sidebar with the settings you have specified when configuring the widget …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful information about using the Currencyr plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you specify the symbol to display as the currency separator when using multiple currencies.
You can change the symbol in the Multiple Separator settings section.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by a forward slash as shown below …
If you specify another symbol and update your settings …
Your website visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
Integration With e-Commerce Software
As mentioned earlier, the Currencyr plugin integrates with a number of WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(above image sourced from plugin website)
Congratulations! Now you can go and easily add a currency converter to your WordPress web site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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