Do you sell goods online to an online audience? If so, then you should probably think about providing users with currency conversion.
Currency conversion tools let your visitors translate international currency transactions to their home currency at the point of sale. It also allows visitors and customers to view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their home currency.
One advantage of adding currency conversion to your site is that it allows visitors to view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, making it it easier for purchasers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, you can add currency conversion via a plugin to currency conversion to WordPress via a plugin, allowing your customers to easily work out the cost of your goods.
Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a unique converter tooltip. It’s also free to install and use on your website or blog.
The Currencyr currency conversion plugin features:
- In-line conversion tool
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates and FoxRates
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Supports integration with various e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce & Shopp.
- Automatic local currency determination
- Full language translation support
Important: This plugin requires 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 web hosting company to update your PHP.
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You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins area and clicking “Install Now” …
When the plugin has been installed and activated, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your WordPress admin user area …
The plugin settings page offers you a number of configuration settings …
For example, you can select a base currency from the ‘Base Currency’ dropdown menu if you want something other than the default option ’United States Dollar’ …
Similarly, you can choose which data provider you want to use from the dropdown menu in the Provider section. The default option is Yahoo Finance, but you can also select one of the other options, like European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select Open Exchange Rates as your provider, you will need to obtain an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can choose how often you want the exchange rates to be updated by selecting an option from the Update Rates drop-down menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to change the jQuery settings, leave them as they are …
Configure the remainder of the plugin settings according to your preferences and click ‘Save Changes’ when finished …
After you have configured your plugin settings, you can easily start adding currency conversion to WordPress pages and posts using a shortcode.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, ZAR, etc …) with the Currencyr plugin.
How To Use Currencyr Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to WP pages, posts and widgets without touching your web templates 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 goods for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to display your amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your page.
To display this information, you will need to add the following shortcode into your page content …
Note: You can also insert prices in dollars and cents (for example, 6.95, 22.00, 149.00, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode looks once you have added it to a post …
After publishing your post or page, your converted currency will display as you can see in the screenshot below …
Using this example, let’s now display the same amount into different currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
The example below shows how the shortcode looks when inserted into a page …
After publishing the post, the currency conversion will then display like this …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol within this plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you would like to specify 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 site targeted to customers from countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode looks when added to a post …
Once the page has been published, your currency conversion will then appear like this …
Using The Plugin Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your site’s sidebar using a widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar area, choose Appearance > Widgets in the WP user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to an ‘Active Widgets’ area …
Configure the widget settings as shown below (add any currency codes you want to display on your widget separated by a comma), and click ‘Save’ to update your settings …
The currency converter will now display on your site’s sidebar with the settings you have specified …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful information about using the Currencyr plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you specify a symbol of your choice 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) …
Separates all your currency amounts with the forward slash as shown below …
If you modify the symbol and update your settings …
Your web visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Platform Integration
As described earlier, the plugin integrates with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image sourced from Currencyr plugin site)
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:
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