Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce site or selling products globally? If so, then you may want to think about providing your potential customers with the convenience of currency conversion on your e-commerce site.
Currency converting software allows your site visitors to convert foreign currency transactions into their home currency at the point of sale. It also lets your customers view the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their local currency.
The obvious advantage of adding currency conversion is that it allows visitors to see and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own local currency, making it it easier for customers to work out their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, it’s easy to add a currency conversion plugin to WordPress, allowing your prospective customers to quickly and easily determine the cost of your goods.
WP Free Currency Converter – Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a visually attractive converter tooltip. And, it’s also free!
This plugin includes features like the following:
- Inline converter
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates and FoxRates
- Supports Shortcodes
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Supports integration with various e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically determines local currency
- Translation support
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 web host to check and upgrade your PHP server installation.
***
You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WordPress admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins screen and clicking the “Install” button …
When the plugin has been installed and activated, you can visit the plugin’s settings area by selecting Currencyr from your WP admin menu …
The plugin settings area offers you many configuration settings …
For example, you can select a base currency from the ‘Base Currency’ drop-down menu. The default option is (‘USD’) …
You can choose a data provider from the drop-down menu in the ‘Provider’ section. The default provider is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can also select another provider, such as FoxRate or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose ‘Open Exchange Rates’, an API (Application Programming Interface) will be required …
You can specify how frequently you want the exchange rates to update by choosing an option from the Update Rates dropdown menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (e.g. WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to edit the jQuery settings, simply ignore this setting …
Edit the remainder of the settings and don’t forget to click Save Changes when finished …
Once your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily start adding currency conversion to WP pages and posts using shortcodes.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, ZAR, etc …) in this plugin.
How To Use Plugin Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into WP posts, pages and widgets without touching code using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WordPress posts and pages:
Let’s say that you sell your product on your site for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to show your amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
To display this information, you will need to add the shortcode below into your post or page …
Note: You can also add prices in dollars and cents (e.g. 16.95, 79.45, 2499.99, etc …)
The example below shows how your shortcode should look after being added to a post …
When your page has been published, your currency conversion will then appear as you can see below …
Using the same example, let’s now display the same amount into different currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode looks when you add it to your content …
After publishing your post or page, the converted currency amounts will then display as you can see in the screenshot below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn how to change the currency separator symbol within the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s say that you would like to use a different base currency than the one selected as your 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 visitors from countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
Here’s how the shortcode looks when inserted into your content …
After publishing the page, the currency conversion will then display as seen below …
Using The Currencyr Widget
You can also add a currency converter to your website or blog’s sidebar area using the Currencyr widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets in your WP admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to an ‘Active Widgets’ location …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the screenshot below (add any currency codes you want displaying on your widget separated by a comma), and click Save to save your settings …
Your currency conversion tool will now display on the sidebar menu with the options you have specified …
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 several currencies.
You can change the symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings field.
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 specify another symbol and resave your settings …
Your website visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
Integration With e-Commerce Software
As mentioned earlier, the plugin integrates with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(above image sourced from Currencyr plugin website)
And there you have it! Now you know how to easily add currency conversion to your e-commerce site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
***
"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum