Do you plan to sell goods or services online globally? If so, then you may want to consider providing users with the convenience of currency conversion on your e-commerce website.
Currency converting software lets your prospects convert foreign currency pricing into their local currency at the point of sale. It also lets your visitors view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their local currency.
One great advantage of showing currency conversion on your site is that it allows customers to see and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own local currency, making it it easier for visitors to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is built using WordPress, you can add currency conversion using a plugin to your web site, allowing your prospective customers to easily perform currency conversions to determine the cost of your products.
Currencyr – Currency Converter For WP Websites
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free!
Some of the many useful features of this great plugin include:
- In-line converter
- Supports several exchange rates providers, like Google, Open Exchange Rates & FoxRates
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Supports integration with various online shopping plugins such as WP-eCommerce & Shopp.
- Automatically detects local currency
- Supports full language translations
Note: This plugin needs your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP on your server. Ask your webhosting provider to upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WordPress admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins area and clicking the “Install” button …
When the plugin has been installed and activated, you can visit the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your dashboard area …
This takes you to the plugin settings section …
For example, you can choose a base currency from a dropdown menu. The default currency is ’USD’ …
You can also select 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 choose one of the other options, like European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select ‘Open Exchange Rates’, you will need to obtain an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can choose how frequently you want to update the exchange rates by choosing 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 (e.g. WordPress plugins).
Unless you have a reason to modify the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Edit the rest of the plugin settings to suit your own preferences and don’t forget to click ‘Save Changes’ when done …
Once you have finished configuring your plugin settings, you can start adding currency conversion to any WP page or post using shortcodes.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, JPY, etc …) with the Currencyr plugin.
Currencyr Shortcodes
You can insert currency conversion into pages, posts and widgets without touching code using shortcodes.
Below are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to your WordPress pages and posts:
Let’s say that you sell a product on your website for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would like to show this price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your product sales page.
To do this, simply add the shortcode below into your page content …
Note: You can also add prices in dollars and cents (e.g. 165.49, 47.00, 295.75, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode looks when added to your post …
When your post has been published, the currency conversion will appear as you can see below …
Using this example, let’s also translate the same amount into multiple currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode appears when inserted into a page …
After publishing the post, your currency conversion will then display like this …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol in this plugin.
Now, suppose you would like to specify a different base currency than the one set as the default.
For example, if you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your e-commerce pages targeted to non-European customers (for example, Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
Here’s how the shortcode appears when inserted into a page …
Once the information has been published, the converted currency will then appear like this …
How To Use The Plugin Widget
You can also add a currency converter to your site’s sidebar area using a widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets from your WP dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to the ‘Active Widgets’ location …
Configure the widget settings as shown below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click Save to save your settings …
The currency conversion tool will now appear on your sidebar menu with the options you have specified when configuring the widget …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional 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 several currencies.
You can select a different 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 screenshot below …
If you change the symbol and resave your settings …
Your web visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
Using The Plugin With WP-Compatible e-Commerce Platforms
As mentioned earlier, the plugin integrates with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image sourced from plugin website)
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add a currency converter to your WordPress web site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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