Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce web site or selling goods online? If so, then here’s a good idea: think about providing your prospects with a currency conversion service.
Currency conversion allows your visitors to translate foreign currency pricing to their home currency at the buying or checkout phase. It also lets visitors see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their own local currency.
The obvious benefit of adding currency conversion to your site is that it allows visitors to view and understand pricing 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 simple to add a currency conversion plugin to currency conversion to your website via a plugin, allowing your customers to quickly work out the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – WP Currency Converting Plugin
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free to install and use on your WordPress site.
The Currencyr currency conversion WordPress plugin includes features such as:
- In-line converter
- Supports various exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates and European Central Bank
- Supports Shortcodes
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with various e-store plugins such as WooCommerce and Shopp.
- Automatically determines local currency
- Full support for language translations
Note: This plugin requires PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed. Alternatively, ask your web host to check and upgrade your PHP server installation if necessary.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WP dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins section and clicking “Install Now” …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your admin user navigation menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings page …
For example, you can select a base currency from the ‘Base Currency’ dropdown menu if you want something other than the default option ‘United States Dollar – (USD)’ …
Similarly, you can choose 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 also select another provider, like European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose Open Exchange Rates, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can select how frequently you would like the currency exchange rates to update 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 allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (like WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to edit the jQuery settings, leave these as they are …
Edit the remainder of the settings and remember to click the ‘Save Changes’ button when you have finished configuring all of your settings …
Once your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily add currency conversion to any WordPress post using widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, CAD, etc …) with this plugin.
Plugin Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into posts, pages and widgets without having to edit code using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WordPress pages and posts:
Let’s say that you retail goods on your website for a set amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to display your conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your product information page.
To display this information, just insert the shortcode below to your page content …
Note: You can also add prices in dollars and cents (e.g. 89.95, 47.00, 400.00, etc …)
The example below shows how your shortcode looks after being added to the page or post …
When the page has been published, your currency conversion will display like this …
Using this example, let’s now translate the same price into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode appears when inserted into a page …
After publishing the page or post, the currency conversion will then display as shown below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol with this plugin.
Now, suppose you would like to select a different base currency than the one you have selected as the default.
For example, say you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your website targeted to customers from countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the shortcode appears when you add it to a post …
After publishing the page, the converted currency amounts will then appear like this …
Currencyr Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your site’s sidebar using the Currencyr widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar area, select Appearance > Widgets in your WP dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to an ‘Active Widgets’ area …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the example below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to update your settings …
The currency conversion tool will now appear on your website’s sidebar 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 multiple currencies.
You can change the symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings field.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by a forward slash as you can see in the example below …
If you modify this symbol and update your plugin settings …
Your site visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
Integration With WordPress e-Commerce Platforms
As stated earlier, the plugin integrates with various WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Shopp …
(image sourced from plugin site)
Congratulations! 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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