Are you planning to set up a WordPress-based e-commerce site, or sell goods and services worldwide? If so, you should probably think about providing your web visitors with currency conversion.
Currency conversion software tools let your visitors have the cost of an international currency transaction translated to their local currency at the point of sale. It also allows visitors and customers to see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their local currency.
One great benefit of showing currency conversion on your site is that it allows customers to see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for customers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is powered by WordPress, it’s simple to add a currency converter to currency conversion to your WordPress website or blog using a plugin, allowing your site visitors to quickly and easily work out the cost of your products.
Currencyr – Currency Conversion Plugin For WordPress
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique and attractive converter tooltip. And, it’s free to install and use on your WP web site.
This currency conversion WordPress plugin features:
- In-line converter
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates & FoxRates
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with a number of e-store plugins like WP-eCommerce & Shopp.
- Automatically determines local currency
- Full support for language translations
Note: This plugin needs your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed. Ask your webhosting company to update your PHP.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WordPress admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins area and clicking “Install Now” …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your WordPress admin user area …
The plugin settings area offers you several configuration options …
For example, you can select your base currency from the ‘Base Currency’ drop-down menu. The default currency is ’US Dollar’ …
You can also choose which data provider you want to use from the drop-down menu in the Provider section. The default provider is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can choose another provider, such as European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) is required …
You can select how frequently you would like to update the currency exchange rates by specifying an option from the ‘Update Rates’ dropdown menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which is an open-source library of Javascript code that lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (e.g. WP plugins).
Unless there is a reason to change the jQuery settings, leave these as they are …
Edit the rest of the settings and remember to click the ‘Save Changes’ button when done …
When your plugin settings have been configured, you can add currency conversion to any WordPress page using shortcodes.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, ZAR, etc …) in this plugin.
How To Use Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into WP pages, posts and widgets without having to edit code using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to your WordPress pages and posts:
Let’s say that you are selling your products online for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to display this amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your product information page.
To do this, simply add the shortcode below into your post or page …
Note: You can also insert prices in dollars and cents (for example, 188.35, 189.00, 399.99, etc …)
The example below shows how your shortcode looks once you have added it to a page or post …
When the content has been published, the currency conversion will display like this …
Using this example, let’s now display the same amount into different currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
The example below now shows how the shortcode looks when inserted into a post …
After publishing the page or post, your converted currency will then display like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol with this plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you would like to use a different base currency than the one set as the default.
For example, if you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to visitors from countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The example below shows how the shortcode looks when added to your content …
After publishing the page or post, your currency conversion will then appear like this …
Plugin Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your site’s sidebar using the Currencyr widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets in the WordPress dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to an Active Widgets location …
Configure the widget settings as shown below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click ‘Save’ to update your settings …
The currency converter tool will now show on your sidebar menu with the options you have selected …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the Currencyr 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 example 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 e-Commerce Platforms
As stated earlier, the plugin integrates with various WP-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(above image sourced from plugin website)
And there you have it! Now you know how to 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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