Are you planning to set up an e-commerce website, or sell goods internationally? If so, then you should probably think about providing your prospects with a currency conversion feature.
Currency converting software allows your site visitors to have the cost of an international currency transaction converted into their local currency at the purchase or checkout stage. It also allows your customers to see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their home currency.
The obvious advantage of putting currency conversion on your site is that it lets visitors view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for visitors to work out their costs and expenses.
If your site is built using WordPress, it’s quite easy to add currency conversion using a plugin to your WordPress website, allowing your visitors to easily perform currency conversions to determine the cost of your products.
Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique and attractive converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free!
The Currencyr useful plugin features:
- Inline converter
- Supports various exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Google and FoxRates
- Supports Shortcodes
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with various e-store plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can determine local currency automatically
- Full translation support
Note: This plugin requires your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed on your server. Ask your web host to update your PHP.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WP dashboard by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking the ”Install Now” button …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your admin user area …
The plugin settings section offers you various configuration options …
For example, you can choose a base currency from a dropdown menu. The default option is ’US Dollar’ …
Similarly, you can select which data provider you want to use from the dropdown menu in the ‘Provider’ section. The default provider is Yahoo Finance, but you can also select another provider, 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 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 lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (e.g. WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to edit the jQuery settings, just ignore this option …
Configure the remainder of the settings according to your own needs and remember to click the Save Changes button when done …
Once you have configured your plugin settings, you can easily add currency conversion to any WP post or page using widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, JPY, etc …) in this plugin.
How To Use Currencyr Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to pages, posts and widgets without having to mess with your web templates using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to pages and posts:
Let’s say that you are selling goods for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would like to display this price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your product sales page.
To do this, just insert the following shortcode into your post or page …
Note: You can also insert amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 19.95, 47.00, 399.99, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how your shortcode looks after you have added it to the page or post …
After publishing the information, your currency conversion will then appear as shown in the screenshot below …
Using the above example, let’s also convert the same price into different currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode looks when you add it to a post …
Once your page has been published, the converted currency amounts will then display as you can see below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol within the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you want to use a different base currency than the one set as your 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 above shortcode looks when inserted into your content …
Once the post has been published, the currency conversion will then display as seen in the example below …
Plugin Widget
You can also add a currency converter to your website’s sidebar using the Currencyr widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar area, choose Appearance > Widgets from the WP dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to the Active Widgets location …
Configure the widget settings as shown below (add the currency codes you want displaying on your widget separated by commas), and click Save to update your settings …
The currency converter tool will now display on the sidebar with the options you have specified …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin allows you to specify the symbol 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, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by a forward slash as shown below …
If you change the symbol and resave your plugin settings …
Your web visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Integration
As mentioned earlier, the Currencyr plugin integrates with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(above image sourced from Currencyr plugin website)
Congratulations! Now you can go and easily add a currency converter to your WordPress web site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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