Are you planning to set up a WordPress-based e-commerce site, or sell goods and services worldwide? If so, then here’s a great idea: think about providing your web visitors with a currency conversion tool.
Currency conversion allows your prospective customers to translate international currency pricing into their home currency at the point of sale. It also allows customers to view the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their own home currency.
The obvious benefit of adding currency conversion to your site is that it lets your customers see and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own local currency, making it it easier for customers to work out their costs and expenses.
If your site is built using WordPress, you can add currency conversion using a plugin to your web site, allowing your customers to easily determine the cost of your products.
Currencyr – WP Free Currency Converter
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, 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 web site.
This useful WordPress plugin features:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports various exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Supports integration with a number of e-store plugins like WooCommerce, Shop & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency detection
- Full language translation support
Note: This plugin requires your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP. Ask your web hosting company to check and upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the plugin from your WordPress admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins area and clicking the “Install Now” button …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can visit the plugin’s settings area by choosing Currencyr from your WP dashboard navigation menu …
The plugin settings page provides many configuration options …
For example, you can choose your base currency from the ‘Base Currency’ dropdown menu if you prefer something other than the default option (USD) …
Similarly, you can choose which data provider you want to use from a drop-down menu. The default provider is Yahoo Finance, but you can select one of the other options, such as FoxRate or Google Finance …
Note: If you choose Open Exchange Rates, you will need to obtain an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can specify how often you would like to update the currency exchange rates by choosing an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down 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 you have a reason to modify the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Configure the rest of the plugin settings and don’t forget to click ‘Save Changes’ when you have finished configuring all the options in this section …
After you have configured your plugin settings, you can start adding currency conversion to any WP post using widgets.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, CAD, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
How To Use Currencyr Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to pages, posts and widgets with no coding knowledge using shortcodes.
Below are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WordPress pages and posts:
Let’s say that you sell your products on your site for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show the conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
To display this information, you simply need to insert the following shortcode to your post or page …
Note: You can also add prices in dollars and cents (e.g. 188.35, 37.95, 400.00, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode should look after being added to your post …
When the post has been published, your converted currency will then appear as you can see in the screenshot below …
Using the same example, let’s also translate the same price into different currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
The screenshot below shows how the above shortcode looks when you add it to a page …
After publishing the information, your converted currency will then appear like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol in the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s say that you want to use a different base currency than the one selected 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 (for example, Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the above shortcode appears when added to a post …
Once the post or page has been published, your converted currency amounts will then display as you can see in the example below …
How To Use The Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your website or blog’s sidebar using the plugin’s widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar menu, choose Appearance > Widgets from the WordPress user admin 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 a comma), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
The currency converter will now show on your sidebar menu with the settings you have specified when configuring the widget …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the Currencyr plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you specify a symbol of your choice to display as the currency separator when using several currencies.
You can select a different symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings section.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your prices with the forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you specify another symbol and update your plugin settings …
Your web visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Integration
As stated earlier, the Currencyr plugin can be integrated with a number of WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: Currencyr plugin site)
And there you have it! Now you can go and easily add a currency converter to your e-commerce web site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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