Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce web site or making goods and services available for sale internationally? If so, then you should probably think about providing users with currency conversion.
Currency conversion lets your prospects have the price of an international currency transaction translated into their home currency when purchasing or checking out products on e-commerce sites. It also allows visitors to view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their local currency.
One benefit of adding currency conversion to your website is that it allows visitors to view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for purchasers to calculate their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, it’s really easy to add a currency conversion plugin to WordPress, allowing your site visitors to easily understand 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. And, it’s free to install and use on your web site.
The Currencyr plugin features:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports several exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates & FoxRates
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Can be integrated with various online shopping plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically detects local currency
- Full translation support
Important: The Currencyr plugin needs your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed on your server. Alternatively, ask your web hosting support team to check and upgrade your PHP server installation.
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You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins screen and clicking the “Install” button …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your WordPress administration menu …
The plugin settings page provides various configuration settings …
For example, you can select your base currency from the ‘Base Currency’ drop-down menu if you prefer to use a different currency than the default option ‘USD’ …
You can choose any supported data provider from the drop-down menu in the ‘Provider’ section. The default option is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can choose one of the other options, like European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose Open Exchange Rates as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) is required …
You can select 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 is an open-source library of Javascript code that allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (e.g. WP plugins).
Unless there is a reason to edit the jQuery settings, you can just ignore this option …
Edit the remainder of the settings to suit your own needs and click ‘Save Changes’ when done …
Once your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily start adding currency conversion to all of your WordPress pages or posts using widgets.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the end of this tutorial to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, CAD, etc …) in this plugin.
Plugin Shortcodes
You can insert currency conversion into WordPress posts, pages and widgets without having to mess with code using shortcodes.
Below are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WP pages and posts:
Let’s say that you retail an item for a set amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to display your amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your page.
All you need to do is insert the shortcode below into your page content …
Note: You can also insert prices in dollars and cents (e.g. 175.00, 79.45, 1356.87, etc …)
The example below shows how the shortcode looks once you have added it to a post …
After publishing your content, the currency conversion will display like this …
Using the same example, let’s also translate the same amount into multiple currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (you can add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode appears when added to a page …
Once your post or page has been published, the converted currency will then appear like this …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn how to change the currency separator symbol with this plugin.
Now, let’s say that you would like to use a different base currency than the one selected 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 non-European visitors (for example, Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The example below shows how the above shortcode looks when you add it to a page …
Once the information has been published, the currency conversion will then display like this …
Using The Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your site’s sidebar using the Currencyr widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar menu, 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 area …
Configure the widget options as shown in the example below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click Save to save your settings …
The currency conversion tool will now appear on your site’s sidebar with the settings you have specified when configuring the widget …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful 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 change the symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings section.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by the forward slash as shown below …
If you select another symbol and update your plugin settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
WordPress E-Commerce
As described earlier, the plugin can be integrated with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(above image sourced from plugin website)
And there you have it! Now you know how to easily add a currency converter to your e-commerce site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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