Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce website or selling goods to a foreign audience? If so, then here’s a great idea: think about providing users with the convenience of currency conversion on your e-commerce web site.
Currency conversion software lets your customers convert foreign currency amounts into their local currency when purchasing or checking out products on e-commerce sites. It also lets your visitors see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their home currency.
The obvious advantage of putting currency conversion is that it lets customers view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, making it it easier for purchasers to work out their costs and expenses.
If your site is powered by WordPress, you can add currency conversion via a plugin to currency conversion to your WP web site via a plugin, allowing your customers to quickly and easily perform currency conversions to determine the cost of your products.
Currencyr – Currency Converting Plugin For WP Websites & Blogs
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a visually attractive converter tooltip. And, it’s also free!
Great plugin features include:
- In-line converter
- Supports various exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates and FoxRates
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with a number of e-commerce plugins like WP-eCommerce and Shopp.
- Can detect local currency automatically
- Translation support
Important: The Currencyr 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 upgrade your PHP server installation if necessary.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WordPress dashboard 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 by choosing Currencyr from your WordPress admin area …
This takes you to the plugin settings area …
For example, you can choose your base currency from a dropdown menu. The default base currency is (‘USD’) …
You can specify which data provider you want to use from the drop-down menu in the ‘Provider’ section. The default option is Yahoo Finance, but you can also choose another option, like FoxRate or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can select how frequently you would like the currency exchange rates to update by selecting an option from the Update Rates drop-down 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 (such as WP plugins).
Unless there is a reason to modify the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Edit the rest of the plugin settings to suit your preferences and click Save Changes when you have configured all of your options …
Once you have finished configuring your settings, you can add currency conversion to WordPress pages and posts using widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, CAD, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
How To Use Plugin Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into WP pages, posts and widgets without having to mess with your web templates using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WP pages and posts:
Let’s say that you are selling your products on your website for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show the price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
To do this, you will need to add the shortcode below to your page content …
Note: You can also add amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 16.95, 22.00, 149.00, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how your shortcode should look when inserting it into your post …
Once the page has been published, your currency conversion will then appear as shown in the example below …
Using this example, let’s now translate the same price into multiple currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode appears when inserted into your content …
Once the content has been published, the currency conversion will then display like this …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the end of this tutorial to learn how to change the currency separator symbol within this plugin.
Now, suppose you want to select a different base currency than the one set as the default.
For example, if you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your website targeted to visitors in countries 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 currency conversion will then appear as seen below …
Currencyr Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your website or blog’s sidebar section using the plugin’s widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets from your WordPress admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to the ‘Active Widgets’ location …
Configure the widget options as shown in the example below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click ‘Save’ to update your settings …
The currency converter tool will now appear on your site’s sidebar menu with the settings you have specified …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional 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 field.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency amounts using a forward slash as you can see in the example below …
If you change the symbol and resave your 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 stated earlier, the Currencyr plugin integrates with a number of WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image sourced from plugin website)
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add currency conversion to your WordPress website.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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