Are you planning to set up an e-commerce site, or sell your products to an overseas market? If so, then you should consider providing users with currency conversion.
Currency converting software tools let your customers convert foreign currency pricing to their home currency at the point of sale. It also allows visitors to see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their home currency.
One great benefit of adding currency conversion is that it allows your customers to view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own local currency, making it it easier for purchasers to work out their costs and expenses.
If your site is built with WordPress, you can add a currency conversion plugin to currency conversion to your website via a plugin, allowing your visitors to quickly work out the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – WP Free Currency Converting Plugin
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique and attractive converter tooltip. It’s also free!
Plugin features include the following:
- Inline converter
- Supports various exchange rates providers, like Google and FoxRates
- Supports Shortcodes
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Can be integrated with a number of online shopping plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically detects local currency
- Translation support
Note: This plugin requires PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed. Alternatively, ask your web hosting support team to update your PHP.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WordPress dashboard by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking “Install Now” …
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, you can configure the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your administration navigation menu …
The plugin settings page offers you various configuration options …
For example, you can choose a base currency from the Base Currency drop-down menu if you prefer a different currency than the default option ’US Dollar’ …
Similarly, you can choose 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 another provider, like European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose ‘Open Exchange Rates’, you will need to enter an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can choose how often you would like to update the exchange rates by specifying 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 WP plugins).
If you have no reason to change the jQuery settings, just ignore this section …
Edit the rest of the plugin settings according to your needs and click Save Changes when done …
When you have finished configuring your plugin settings, you can easily start adding currency conversion to WP site’s pages using widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, JPY, etc …) with this plugin.
How To Use Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into WP pages, posts and widgets with no web coding skills or knowledge using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to your WordPress posts and pages:
Let’s say that you sell goods online for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to show your conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your page.
To display this information, you will need to insert the following shortcode into your post or page …
Note: You can also display prices in dollars and cents (e.g. 89.95, 29.95, 295.75, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the above shortcode looks when added to a product page …
After your post has been published, the currency conversion will appear as you can see below …
Using the same example, let’s also translate the same price into different currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode looks when inserted into your content …
Once your page has been published, your converted currency amounts will then display like this …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the end of this tutorial to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol within the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s say that you would like to select a different base currency than the one you have set as the default.
For example, say 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 screenshot below now shows how the above shortcode looks when you add it to your content …
Once your content has been published, your converted currency will then display like this …
Widget
You can also add a currency converter to your site’s sidebar menu using the plugin’s widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar area, select Appearance > Widgets in the WordPress admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to the ‘Active Widgets’ location …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the screenshot below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click Save to update your settings …
The currency converter will now display on your sidebar menu with the settings you have selected …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional 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 section.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency amounts using a forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you enter another symbol and resave your settings …
Your website visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Integration
As mentioned earlier, the Currencyr plugin can be integrated with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(above image sourced from Currencyr plugin website)
Congratulations! Now you can go and easily add a currency converter to your e-commerce site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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