Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce site or making goods or services available for sale globally? If so, then it’s a great idea to consider providing users with the convenience of currency conversion on your web site.
Currency conversion software lets your visitors have the price of an international currency transaction translated into their local currency at the point of sale. It also lets visitors and customers view the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their own local currency.
One advantage of showing currency conversion on your website is that it allows visitors to view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for purchasers to work out their costs and expenses.
If your site is powered by WordPress, you can add a currency conversion plugin to currency conversion to WordPress using a plugin, allowing your prospective customers to quickly and easily work out the cost of your products.
WP Currency Conversion Plugin – Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a visually attractive converter tooltip. It’s also free to install and use on your web site.
Some of the many useful features of this plugin include the following:
- Inline converter
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, such as Google and FoxRates
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with various e-store plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can detect local currency automatically
- Translation support
Note: This plugin needs 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. Alternatively, ask your web hosting company to check and upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WP dashboard by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking “Install Now” …
After you have installed and activated the plugin, you can get to the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your WordPress admin user navigation menu …
The plugin settings area offers you a number of configuration options …
For example, you can choose your base currency from a dropdown menu. The default base currency is ’US Dollar’ …
Similarly, you can specify which data provider you want to use from a drop-down menu. The default provider is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can also select another option, such as European Central Bank or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) will be required …
You can choose how frequently you would like to update the currency exchange rates by specifying an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to edit the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Edit the remainder of the plugin settings according to your needs and don’t forget to click ‘Save Changes’ when you have finished configuring this screen …
Once you have configured your settings, you can start adding currency conversion to your WordPress pages using widgets.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, ZAR, etc …) with this plugin.
How To Use Currencyr Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into posts, pages and widgets with no programming knowledge 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 a product on your site for a set amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to display this conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
To display this information, simply insert the shortcode below into your post or page …
Note: You can also add amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 89.95, 22.00, 2499.99, etc …)
The example below shows how the above shortcode will look after being inserted into your post or page …
Once your post or page has been published, the converted currency will display as shown below …
Using this example, let’s also display the same price into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode appears when you add it to your content …
Once the page has been published, the converted currency amounts will then appear like this …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol within the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you would like to use a different base currency than the one you have set as your default.
For example, if you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to non-European visitors (e.g. Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the above shortcode appears when you add it to a post …
After publishing your post or page, your currency conversion will then appear like this …
Plugin Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your website’s sidebar menu using a widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets from your WordPress user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to an ‘Active Widgets’ location …
Configure the widget settings as shown below (add any currency codes you would like to display on your widget separated by commas), and click Save to update your settings …
Your currency converter tool will now appear on the sidebar with the settings you have selected …
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 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 example below …
If you choose another symbol and resave your settings …
Your website visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Software Integration
As mentioned earlier, the plugin integrates with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: plugin site)
And there you have it! Now you can go and easily add currency conversion to your e-commerce website.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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