Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce web site or selling products globally? If so, you may want to consider providing your prospects with a currency conversion feature.
Currency conversion tools let your prospects convert international currency amounts to their local currency at the point of sale. It also allows visitors to view the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their home currency.
One great advantage of adding currency conversion is that it allows visitors to view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own home currency, making it it easier for purchasers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is built using WordPress, it’s really simple to add currency conversion via a plugin to currency conversion to your WordPress website or blog using a plugin, allowing your customers to quickly calculate the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – Free Currency Converting Tool For WP Sites
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 site.
Some of the many features of this plugin include the following:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, such as Google, Open Exchange Rates & FoxRates
- 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
- Support for language translations
Important: The Currencyr plugin needs PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed on your server. Ask your web hosting support team to check and upgrade your PHP.
***
You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WP admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins area and clicking “Install Now” …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can access the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your dashboard navigation menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings page …
For example, you can choose your base currency from a dropdown menu. The default option is ’USD’ …
You can choose a data provider from a drop-down menu. The default selection is Yahoo Finance, but you can also select one of the other options, like FoxRate or Google Finance …
Note: If you select Open Exchange Rates as your provider, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can specify how often you want to update the currency exchange rates by selecting an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which is an open-source library of Javascript code that lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (like WP plugins).
If you have no reason to modify the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Configure the rest of the settings and remember to click the Save Changes button when you have finished configuring all the settings on this page …
When you have configured your plugin settings, you can add currency conversion to any WP page or post using widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, JPY, etc …) with the Currencyr plugin.
Using Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to posts, pages and widgets with no coding skills or knowledge 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 sell your products on your site for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to display the amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
To do this, just add the following shortcode into your page content …
Note: You can also add amounts in dollars and cents (e.g. 89.95, 79.45, 400.00, etc …)
The example below shows how the shortcode looks when added to the post …
After the post or page has been published, the currency conversion will display like this …
Using the same example, let’s also display the same amount into different currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode appears when added to a page …
After publishing your content, your converted currency will then appear like this …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol in the Currencyr plugin.
Now, suppose you want to specify 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 website targeted to non-European customers (like Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The screenshot below now shows how the above shortcode appears when added to a post …
After publishing your post, the converted currency will then appear like this …
Plugin Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your website’s sidebar using the Currencyr widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar area, select Appearance > Widgets from your WP admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to the ‘Active Widgets’ area …
Configure the widget settings as shown below (add the currency codes you want displaying on your widget separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
Your currency converter will now show on your sidebar menu with the settings you have specified …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful information about using the plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin allows you to 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 section.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency values using a forward slash as you can see in the example below …
If you specify another symbol and resave your settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
Integration With WordPress e-Commerce Platforms
As stated earlier, the plugin can be integrated with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, Shopp and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: plugin site)
And there you have it! Now you know how to easily add a currency converter to your e-commerce web site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
***
"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)