Are you planning to sell any products online worldwide? If so, then it’s a great idea to think about providing users with currency conversion.
Currency converting software lets your site visitors have the cost of a foreign currency transaction converted to their home currency at the buying or checkout stage. It also allows visitors to see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their own home currency.
One great advantage of adding currency conversion is that it lets visitors view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, making it it easier for visitors to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is powered by WordPress, you can add currency conversion via a plugin to your WordPress site, allowing your prospective customers to quickly and easily understand the cost of your products.
Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a unique and attractive converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free!
Great plugin features include the following:
- In-line conversion tool
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates and FoxRates
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with various online shopping plugins like WP-eCommerce and Shopp.
- Automatically determines local currency
- Supports full translations
Note: This plugin requires your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP on your server. Ask your web host to upgrade 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” …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can get to the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your WP dashboard navigation menu …
The plugin settings section provides a number of configuration options …
For example, you can choose your base currency from the ‘Base Currency’ dropdown menu. The default base currency is ‘USD’ …
Similarly, you can choose which data provider you want to use from the dropdown menu in the Provider section. The default selection is Yahoo Finance, but you can select one of the other options, like European Central Bank or Google Finance …
Note: If you select Open Exchange Rates as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) will be required …
You can choose how often you want the currency exchange rates to be updated 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 (e.g. WP plugins).
If you have no reason to edit the jQuery settings, simply ignore this setting …
Edit the rest of the settings and remember to click ‘Save Changes’ when done …
When you have configured your settings, you can add currency conversion to your WordPress posts using shortcodes and widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, CAD, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
Using Shortcodes
You can insert currency conversion into pages, posts and widgets without touching code using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WP pages and posts:
Let’s say that you sell your product on your website for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to display the conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your page.
To do this, you simply need to add the shortcode below to your page content …
Note: You can also add prices in dollars and cents (for example, 89.95, 29.95, 2499.99, etc …)
The example below shows how your shortcode looks after being added to the post or page …
After publishing your page or post, your converted currency will appear like this …
Using this example, let’s also translate the same amount into multiple currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode looks when inserted into your content …
After publishing your page or post, your converted currency will then appear as seen below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn how to change the currency separator symbol with this plugin.
Now, suppose you want to select a different base currency than the one you have selected as your default.
For example, if you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your website targeted to visitors from countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The example below shows how the above shortcode looks when inserted into a post …
After publishing the page or post, the currency conversion will then appear like this …
Plugin Widget
You can also add a currency converter to your website or blog’s sidebar using the plugin’s widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar area, select Appearance > Widgets from the WP dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to an ‘Active Widgets’ location …
Configure the widget settings as shown below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click Save to save your settings …
Your currency converter tool will now appear on your sidebar menu with the options you have specified …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the Currencyr 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, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by a forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you change the symbol and resave your settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
Integration With WordPress e-Commerce Platforms
As mentioned earlier, the plugin integrates with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, Shopp and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image sourced from plugin website)
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add a currency converter to your e-commerce website.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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