Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce site or selling goods online? If so, then it’s a good idea to consider providing users with a currency conversion tool.
Currency converting software tools let your customers convert foreign currency amounts into their local currency at the point of sale. It also lets your visitors see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their local currency.
One great benefit of putting currency conversion on your site is that it lets customers see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for customers to work out their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, it’s simple to add currency conversion using a plugin to currency conversion to WordPress using a plugin, allowing your customers to easily work out the cost of your products.
Currencyr – WordPress Free Currency Conversion Plugin
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a visually attractive converter tooltip. And, it’s 100% free!
The Currencyr currency conversion WordPress plugin features:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports several exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates & European Central Bank
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Can be integrated with a number of e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically determines local currency
- Full language translation support
Note: The Currencyr plugin needs 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. Alternatively, ask your webhosting company to 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 the ”Install Now” button …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your admin area …
This takes you to the plugin settings page …
For example, you can select your base currency from a dropdown menu if you prefer to use something other than the default option ’US Dollar’ …
You can specify which data provider you want to use from a drop-down menu. The default option is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can also choose another provider, like European Central Bank 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 frequently you would like the exchange rates to update by specifying an option from the Update Rates dropdown menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (e.g. WP plugins).
If you have no reason to edit the jQuery settings, leave them as they are …
Edit the remainder of the plugin settings and remember to click ‘Save Changes’ when done …
After you have finished configuring your plugin settings, you can start adding currency conversion to your WP pages using shortcodes and widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, CAD, etc …) in this plugin.
Shortcodes
You can easily add currency conversion to WordPress posts, pages and widgets without touching your web templates using shortcodes.
Below are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to pages and posts:
Let’s say that you retail an item on your website for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show your conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your product information page.
To do this, just insert the shortcode below to your page content …
Note: You can also add amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 175.00, 97.00, 149.00, etc …)
The example below shows how your shortcode should look once you have inserted it into a page …
After publishing your content, your converted currency will then display like this …
Using the above example, let’s now convert the same price into multiple currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (you can add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode appears when inserted into your content …
After publishing your content, the converted currency amounts will then appear like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol in the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s say that you would like to select a different base currency than the one you have selected as your default.
For example, say you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to non-European visitors (like Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the above shortcode appears when added to a post …
Once your page has been published, the converted currency amounts will then appear as you can see below …
Plugin Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your website or blog’s sidebar using the Currencyr widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar, select 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 options as shown below (add any currency codes you would like to display on your widget separated by a comma), and click Save to save your settings …
The currency converter tool will now display on your site’s sidebar with the settings you have specified …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful information about using the Currencyr plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin allows you to specify the symbol to display as the currency separator when using multiple currencies.
You can select a different symbol in the Multiple Separator settings field.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by a forward slash as shown below …
If you change this symbol and update your plugin settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
e-Commerce Software Integration
As described earlier, the Currencyr plugin integrates with a number of WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image sourced from Currencyr plugin website)
And there you have it! Now you know how to easily add currency conversion to your e-commerce website.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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