Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce site or making products available for sale worldwide? If so, then you may want to think about providing users with currency conversion.
Currency conversion software lets your prospective customers have the price of an international currency transaction translated into their home currency at the buying or checkout phase. It also allows customers to see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their own home currency.
One great benefit of adding currency conversion is that it allows visitors to see and understand prices 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 with WordPress, you can add currency conversion via a plugin to WordPress, allowing your customers to easily calculate the cost of your products.
Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. And, it’s completely free to install and use on your WP site.
Some of the many features of this great plugin include the following:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports several exchange rates providers, like Google & European Central Bank
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with a number of online store plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency determination
- Supports full translations
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 on your server. Ask your web hosting company to update your PHP.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WP dashboard by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking “Install Now” …
After you have installed and activated the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your administration area …
This takes you to the plugin settings screen …
For example, you can choose your base currency from a drop-down menu. The default base currency is ’US Dollar’ …
Similarly, you can choose any supported data provider from a drop-down menu. The default selection is Yahoo Finance, but you can select one of the other options, 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 select how often you want to update the currency exchange rates by choosing an option from the Update Rates dropdown menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (like WordPress plugins).
Unless you have a reason to edit the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Configure the rest of the settings to suit your preferences and remember to click ‘Save Changes’ when finished …
When your plugin settings have been configured, you can add currency conversion to all of your WP pages and posts using a shortcode.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, JPY, etc …) in this plugin.
Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into pages, posts and widgets without having to edit your web templates using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to your WP pages and posts:
Let’s say that you are selling a product on your website for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to display the conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your page.
To do this, you simply need to add the shortcode below into your post or page …
Note: You can also add amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 155.25, 97.00, 149.00, etc …)
The example below shows how your shortcode looks when inserting it into your page …
Once the content has been published, your converted currency will then appear as seen below …
Using the same example, let’s also translate the same price into multiple currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
The screenshot below now shows how the shortcode appears when inserted into your content …
Once the page or post has been published, the converted currency amounts will then appear as shown in the screenshot below …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol with the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you want to select 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 site targeted to non-European customers (for example, Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The screenshot below shows how the above shortcode looks when inserted into your content …
After publishing your page or post, your converted currency amounts will then appear as shown in the screenshot below …
Plugin Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your website or blog’s sidebar section using a widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar menu, select Appearance > Widgets from the WP dashboard 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 screenshot below (add any currency codes you would like to display on your widget separated by commas), and click Save to save your settings …
Your currency conversion tool will now display 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 select a different 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 example below …
If you select another symbol and update your plugin settings …
Your website visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
e-Commerce Platform Integration
As stated earlier, the Currencyr plugin can be integrated with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: Currencyr plugin website)
Congratulations! Now you know how to 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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