Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce web site or making goods or services available for sale globally? If so, then here’s a great idea: think about providing your prospects with the convenience of currency conversion on your web site.
Currency converting software lets your prospects translate foreign currency pricing into their local currency at the point of sale. It also lets visitors view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their home currency.
One great benefit of adding currency conversion to your website is that it lets customers see and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own local currency, making it it easier for visitors to work out their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, it’s simple to add currency conversion using a plugin to currency conversion to WordPress using a plugin, allowing your visitors to quickly determine the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – Currency Converter For WP Web Sites
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique converter tooltip. It’s also free to install and use on your WordPress site.
Great plugin features include:
- In-line converter
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, like Google, Open Exchange Rates & FoxRates
- Supports Shortcodes
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with various e-store plugins such as WP-eCommerce & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically detects local currency
- Supports full translations
Note: This plugin requires PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP on your server. Ask your web host to update your PHP server installation if necessary.
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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 the “Install” button …
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your admin user navigation menu …
The plugin settings section offers you several configuration settings …
For example, you can select a base currency from the ‘Base Currency’ drop-down menu if you prefer to use a different currency than the default option ‘United States Dollar – (USD)’ …
Similarly, you can select which data provider you want to use from the drop-down menu in the ‘Provider’ section. The default selection is Yahoo Finance, but you can also choose one of the other options, like European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select Open Exchange Rates as your provider, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can specify how often you would like the currency exchange rates to update by selecting an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to change the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Edit the rest of the plugin settings according to your needs and remember to click Save Changes when done …
After your plugin settings have been configured, you can start adding currency conversion to all of your WordPress site’s pages using shortcodes.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, CAD, etc …) in this plugin.
Currencyr Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to WP pages, posts and widgets with no coding knowledge using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WordPress pages and posts:
Let’s say that you sell goods on your site for a set amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would like to display your amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
All you need to do is add the following shortcode into your post or page …
Note: You can also display prices in dollars and cents (e.g. 6.95, 189.00, 544.97, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how your shortcode should look after being inserted into the post …
After publishing the information, the currency conversion will then appear as you can see below …
Using the same example, let’s now display the same price into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (you can add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode looks when inserted into a post …
After publishing your content, your currency conversion will then appear like this …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn how to change the currency separator symbol in the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you would like to use a different base currency than the one selected as your default.
For example, if you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your e-commerce pages targeted to customers in countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the shortcode looks when inserted into your content …
Once your page or post has been published, your currency conversion will then appear as seen in the screenshot below …
How To Use The Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your site’s sidebar using a widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets in your WP user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to the ‘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 website’s sidebar with the options you have specified …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful 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 section.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by the forward slash as shown below …
If you modify this symbol and update your settings …
Your website visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Platform Integration
As described earlier, the plugin can be integrated with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: plugin site)
And there you have it! Now you can go and easily add currency conversion to your e-commerce site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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