Do you plan to set up a WordPress-based e-commerce site, or sell goods worldwide? If so, then you may want to consider providing your prospects with a currency conversion service.
Currency converting software tools allow your web visitors to have the price of a foreign currency transaction converted into their home currency when checking out products on e-commerce sites. It also lets your customers see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their own home currency.
One benefit of adding currency conversion is that it lets your customers see and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for visitors to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is built with WordPress, it’s easy and simple to add currency conversion via a plugin to WordPress, allowing your visitors to quickly and easily perform currency conversions to determine the cost of your products.
Currencyr – Currency Converting Plugin For WP Websites & Blogs
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. It’s also free to install and use on your WordPress website or blog.
Plugin features include the following:
- Inline converter
- Supports several exchange rates providers, such as Google & European Central Bank
- Supports Shortcodes
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with a number of e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically determines local currency
- Supports full translations
Note: The Currencyr plugin requires PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed. Ask your web hosting support team to check and upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WP admin area by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking “Install Now” …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, you can access the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your administration navigation menu …
The plugin settings page offers you many configuration options …
For example, you can select a base currency from the Base Currency drop-down menu if you want a different currency than the default option ’USD’ …
You can select any supported data provider from a dropdown menu. The default option is Yahoo Finance, but you can also choose one of the other options, such as European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose ‘Open Exchange Rates’, an API (Application Programming Interface) will be required …
You can choose how often you would like the exchange rates to update by choosing an option from the Update Rates dropdown menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (e.g. WordPress plugins).
Unless you have a reason to change the jQuery settings, you can simply ignore this section …
Configure the remainder of the plugin settings according to your preferences and don’t forget to click Save Changes when you have finished configuring this page …
Once you have configured your settings, you can start adding currency conversion to your WordPress pages using shortcodes and widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, CAD, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
Currencyr Shortcodes
You can easily add currency conversion to posts, pages and widgets without having to mess with your web templates using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to pages and posts:
Let’s say that you are selling goods online for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to display your amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your page.
To do this, you will need to add the shortcode below to your post or page …
Note: You can also display prices in dollars and cents (for example, 175.00, 29.95, 400.00, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how your shortcode will look when inserting it into the page …
After publishing the post or page, your converted currency amount will then display as you can see in the screenshot below …
Using the above example, let’s also translate the same amount into different currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode appears when you add it to a page …
Once your information has been published, your currency conversion will then appear like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol with the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s say that you want to specify a different base currency than the one set as the default.
For example, if you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to customers in countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The screenshot below now shows how the shortcode looks when you add it to a post …
After publishing the information, your currency conversion will then display like this …
How To Use The Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your website’s sidebar area using the Currencyr widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar area, choose Appearance > Widgets from the 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 below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click Save to update your settings …
The currency converter will now show on the sidebar menu with the settings you have specified when configuring the widget …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful information about using the Currencyr plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you specify the symbol to display as the currency separator when using several 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 example below …
If you change the symbol and update your settings …
Your site visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
Integration With WordPress e-Commerce Platforms
As mentioned earlier, the plugin can be integrated with a number of WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: plugin website)
And there you have it! Now you know how to easily add a currency converter to your WordPress site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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