Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce website or making goods or services available for sale worldwide? If so, then here’s a great idea: consider providing users with a currency conversion tool.
Currency conversion software tools allow your visitors to have the cost of a foreign currency transaction converted into their home currency at the buying or checkout phase. It also lets customers view the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their local currency.
One great advantage of putting currency conversion is that it allows visitors to view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for customers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is powered by WordPress, it’s simple to add a currency converter to your site, allowing your customers to easily understand the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – WP Currency Conversion Plugin
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique and attractive converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free!
Great plugin features include:
- In-line conversion tool
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, like Google and European Central Bank
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with various online shopping plugins like WooCommerce & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically detects local currency
- Full language translation support
Note: 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. Alternatively, ask your webhosting provider 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” …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your admin area …
The plugin settings section offers you many configuration options …
For example, you can choose a base currency from a dropdown menu if you prefer a different currency than the default option ’USD’ …
You can also choose which data provider you want to use from a dropdown menu. The default provider is Yahoo Finance, but you can also select another provider, 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 often you want 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 (e.g. WP plugins).
Unless there is a reason to modify the jQuery settings, leave them as they are …
Edit the remainder of the plugin settings and don’t forget to click ‘Save Changes’ when finished …
Once your plugin settings have been configured, you can start adding currency conversion to WordPress website’s posts or pages using shortcodes and widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, JPY, etc …) with the Currencyr plugin.
Plugin Shortcodes
You can insert currency conversion into WP posts, pages and widgets without having to edit code using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to posts and pages:
Let’s say that you sell an item for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show your amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your product sales page.
To do this, just add the shortcode below into your page content …
Note: You can also add prices in dollars and cents (for example, 155.25, 79.45, 544.97, etc …)
The example below shows how the shortcode looks when added to your post …
After publishing the content, your currency conversion will then display like this …
Using the above example, let’s now convert the same price into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode appears when inserted into a post …
Once your content has been published, the currency conversion will then appear as shown below …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol within the Currencyr plugin.
Now, suppose you want to specify a different base currency than the one set as your default.
For example, if you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to customers from countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The example below now shows how the above shortcode appears when inserted into your content …
Once your post has been published, the converted currency will then display as shown in the example below …
Using The Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your site’s sidebar section using a widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets from your WordPress dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to an Active Widgets location …
Configure the widget options as shown below (add the currency codes you would like to display on your widget separated by commas), and click Save to save your settings …
Your currency conversion tool will now appear on the sidebar with the settings you have specified when configuring the widget …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional 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 select a different symbol in the Multiple Separator settings field.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your prices using the forward slash as shown below …
If you modify this symbol and resave your plugin settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
Integration With WP e-Commerce Platforms
As stated earlier, the plugin integrates with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(above image sourced from plugin website)
Congratulations! Now you can go and 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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