Are you planning to sell products online to an online audience? If so, then you should probably consider providing users with currency conversion.
Currency converting tools let your customers have the price of an international currency transaction converted into their local currency at the point of sale. It also lets your visitors and customers see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their home currency.
The obvious benefit of showing currency conversion is that it allows customers to view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for visitors to calculate their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, you can add a currency converter to your site, allowing your prospective customers to easily work out the cost of your products.
Currencyr – WordPress Currency Conversion Plugin
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a visually attractive converter tooltip. It’s also free to install and use on your site.
Plugin features include the following:
- In-line converter
- Supports various exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo! & Open Exchange Rates
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Supports integration with a number of e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, Shop and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency detection
- Supports full language translations
Note: The Currencyr plugin requires your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP on your server. Alternatively, ask your web host to upgrade your PHP server installation.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WP admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins area and clicking the ”Install Now” button …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your admin user navigation menu …
The plugin settings area offers you a number of configuration options …
For example, you can choose a base currency from the ‘Base Currency’ drop-down menu. The default option is ’USD’ …
You can also select any supported data provider from the drop-down menu in the Provider section. The default selection is Yahoo Finance, but you can choose one of the other options, such as European Central Bank or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select Open Exchange Rates, an API (Application Programming Interface) is required …
You can select how frequently you want the exchange rates to be updated by selecting 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 (such as WP plugins).
If you have no reason to change the jQuery settings, leave these as they are …
Edit the remainder of the settings to suit your needs and click the Save Changes button when done …
When your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily add currency conversion to any WP page or post using shortcodes and widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, ZAR, etc …) with this plugin.
How To Use Shortcodes
You can easily add currency conversion to WordPress posts, pages and widgets without touching code using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WordPress pages and posts:
Let’s say that you are selling your product for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to display this amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your page.
To display this information, just add the shortcode below to your page content …
Note: You can also display amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 16.95, 47.00, 1356.87, etc …)
The example below shows how the above shortcode will look when inserting it into the page …
After publishing the page or post, the converted currency amount will then appear like this …
Using this example, let’s now display the same price into different currency formats.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (you can add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode appears when inserted into a page …
Once the information has been published, your currency conversion will then appear as seen in the screenshot below …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol with this plugin.
Now, suppose you want to specify a different base currency than the one you have set as your default.
For example, say you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your website targeted to non-European customers (e.g. Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the shortcode appears when inserted into a post …
Once the information has been published, your converted currency amounts will then appear like this …
How To Use The Currencyr Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your website’s sidebar area using a widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar area, choose Appearance > Widgets from your WP user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to the ‘Active Widgets’ area …
Configure the widget options as shown below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click Save to update your settings …
Your currency converter tool will now show on your sidebar menu 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 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 you can see in the screenshot below …
If you modify this symbol and update your plugin settings …
Your site visitors will see the new symbol display 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 and Shopp …
(image source: Currencyr plugin website)
Congratulations! Now you can go and 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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