Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce site or making goods available for sale online? If so, then it’s a good idea to consider providing your potential customers with a currency conversion tool.
Currency converting software tools let your customers translate foreign currency prices to their local currency at the buying or checkout stage. It also allows your visitors to see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their home currency.
One great benefit of putting currency conversion on your website is that it lets customers view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for visitors to work out their costs and expenses.
If your site is powered by WordPress, it’s really easy to add currency conversion using a plugin to WordPress, allowing your prospective customers to quickly work out the cost of your products.
Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free!
The Currencyr currency conversion WP plugin features:
- In-line converter
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Can be integrated with a number of online store plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can determine local currency automatically
- Supports full language translations
Important: This 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. Ask your webhosting company to upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WP admin area by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking “Install Now” …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can access the plugin’s settings section by choosing Currencyr from your dashboard menu …
The plugin settings section offers you several configuration settings …
For example, you can choose your base currency from a drop-down menu if you prefer a different currency than the default option ‘USD’ …
You can also choose which data provider you want to use from the dropdown menu in the ‘Provider’ section. The default provider is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can choose another provider, such as European Central Bank or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose Open Exchange Rates, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can choose how frequently you would like the currency exchange rates to update by choosing an option from the ‘Update Rates’ dropdown menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to change the jQuery settings, simply ignore this option …
Configure the remainder of the settings and click Save Changes when finished …
Once you have configured your plugin settings, you can easily start adding currency conversion to any WP post or page using a shortcode.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, CAD, etc …) with the Currencyr plugin.
How To Use Currencyr Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to WP posts, pages and widgets with no technical knowledge or skills using shortcodes.
Below are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to posts and pages:
Let’s say that you sell goods for a set amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to show the conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your product information page.
To do this, just insert the following shortcode into your post or page …
Note: You can also insert amounts in dollars and cents (e.g. 188.35, 97.00, 544.97, etc …)
The example below shows how your shortcode looks after being inserted into the product page …
Once the post has been published, your converted currency will then display as you can see in the screenshot below …
Using the same example, let’s also convert the same amount into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
The screenshot below now shows how the above shortcode appears when inserted into a post …
After publishing your post or page, your converted currency will then appear like this …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol with this plugin.
Now, suppose you want to specify a different base currency than the one selected as your default.
For example, if you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your e-commerce pages targeted to non-European visitors (for example, Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the above shortcode looks when added to a post …
After publishing your post or page, your currency conversion will then display like this …
How To Use The Widget
You can also add a currency converter to your website’s sidebar menu using the plugin’s widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets from the WP admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to an ‘Active Widgets’ area …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the example below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click Save to save your settings …
The currency converter tool 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 plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you 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, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by the forward slash as you can see in the example below …
If you change this symbol and resave your plugin settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
Using The Currencyr Plugin With WordPress-Compatible e-Commerce Platforms
As described earlier, the Currencyr plugin integrates with a number of WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, Shopp and Easy Digital Downloads …
(above image sourced from Currencyr plugin site)
And there you have it! Now you know how to easily add currency conversion to your WordPress web site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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