Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce web site or making goods or services available for sale internationally? If so, you should think about providing users with a currency conversion feature.
Currency conversion lets your prospects have the cost of an international currency transaction translated to their home currency at the buying or checkout phase. It also lets your customers 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 allows your customers to see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for purchasers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is powered by WordPress, it’s easy to add a currency conversion plugin to currency conversion to WordPress using a plugin, allowing your prospective customers to quickly and easily understand the cost of your products.
WP Currency Converter – Currencyr
Currencyr is an 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 WordPress website.
This currency conversion plugin features:
- In-line converter
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Can be integrated with various e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically detects local currency
- Full support for language translations
Note: The Currencyr plugin needs PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP. Alternatively, ask your web host to check and upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WordPress dashboard by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking the ”Install Now” button …
After you have installed and activated the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your WordPress admin navigation menu …
The plugin settings section offers you several configuration options …
For example, you can choose your base currency from the Base Currency dropdown menu if you prefer to use a different currency than the default option ‘USD’ …
Similarly, you can specify which data provider you want to use from the drop-down menu in the Provider section. The default option is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can choose another provider, such as European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select ‘Open Exchange Rates’, an API (Application Programming Interface) is required …
You can specify how frequently you want to update the currency exchange rates by specifying an option from the Update Rates dropdown menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to change the jQuery settings, leave these as they are …
Configure the rest of the settings and remember to click Save Changes when done …
Once you have configured your plugin settings, you can easily add currency conversion to any WP post or page using shortcodes.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the end of this tutorial to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, CAD, etc …) with the Currencyr plugin.
Plugin Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into pages, posts and widgets with no coding knowledge using shortcodes.
Below are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to pages and posts:
Let’s say that you are selling your products for a set amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to display your price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
All you need to do is insert the following shortcode to your page content …
Note: You can also insert pricing in dollars and cents (for example, 155.25, 189.00, 2499.99, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode looks once you have inserted it into a page or post …
When your information has been published, your converted currency amount will appear as you can see below …
Using the same example, let’s now display the same amount into different currency formats.
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 looks when inserted into your content …
After publishing your content, the currency conversion will then appear like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol with this plugin.
Now, suppose you want to select a different base currency than the one you have selected as your default.
For example, if you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to customers in countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
Here’s how the above shortcode looks when inserted into a page …
Once your page or post has been published, the converted currency amounts will then appear as seen below …
Currencyr Widget
You can also add a currency converter to your website or blog’s sidebar using the plugin’s widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets in the WP user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to an ‘Active Widgets’ area …
Configure the widget options as shown in the example below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to update your settings …
Your currency converter tool will now appear on your website’s sidebar with the settings you have specified …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you specify a symbol of your choice to display as the currency separator when using multiple currencies.
You can change the 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 modify the symbol and update your settings …
Your web visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Software Integration
As stated earlier, the Currencyr plugin can be integrated with various WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Shopp …
(above image sourced from Currencyr plugin site)
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add currency conversion to your WordPress site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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