Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce web site or making goods available for sale to an online audience? If so, then you may want to think about providing users with currency conversion.
Currency conversion allows your prospective customers to have the price of an international currency amount converted into their local currency at the purchase or checkout stage. It also lets visitors see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their own local currency.
One great benefit of adding currency conversion is that it lets your customers see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, making it it easier for purchasers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, you can add a currency conversion plugin to currency conversion to WordPress via a plugin, allowing your customers to easily calculate the cost of your products.
Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique and attractive converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free!
This useful WordPress plugin includes features like:
- In-line converter
- Supports various exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- Supports Shortcodes
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with a number of online store plugins such as WooCommerce, Shop & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency determination
- Translation support
Note: The Currencyr 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. Ask your webhosting support team to upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the plugin from your WordPress admin area by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking the “Install Now” button …
When the plugin has been installed and activated, you can get to the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your dashboard menu …
The plugin settings screen offers you various configuration settings …
For example, you can choose a base currency from the Base Currency drop-down menu. The default currency is ’US Dollar’ …
Similarly, you can specify which data provider you want to use from a drop-down menu. The default selection is Yahoo Finance, but you can also choose another option, like European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose Open Exchange Rates as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) is required …
You can choose how frequently you would like the exchange rates to update by selecting an option from the Update Rates drop-down menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (e.g. WordPress plugins).
Unless you have a reason to modify the jQuery settings, just ignore this section …
Configure the remainder of the settings and click ‘Save Changes’ when you have configured all the settings in this screen …
After your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily start adding currency conversion to any WP page or post using shortcodes and widgets.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, JPY, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
Using Currencyr Shortcodes
You can easily add currency conversion to posts, pages and widgets with no technical skills using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to pages and posts:
Let’s say that you retail an item online for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show your price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your page.
All you need to do is insert the following shortcode into your page content …
Note: You can also display prices in dollars and cents (e.g. 89.95, 47.00, 2499.99, etc …)
The example below shows how your shortcode will look when added to your post …
Once your page or post has been published, your converted currency amount will then display as shown below …
Using this example, let’s also display the same price into multiple currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
The example below shows how the above shortcode appears when inserted into your content …
After publishing your content, your converted currency will then display like this …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol within this plugin.
Now, suppose you want to specify a different base currency than the one set as the 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 screenshot below shows how the shortcode looks when you add it to a post …
After publishing your page, the converted currency amounts will then display like this …
Currencyr Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into 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 section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to the ‘Active Widgets’ area …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the example below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click ‘Save’ to update your settings …
Your currency converter tool will now show on your website’s sidebar with the settings you have specified when configuring the widget …
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 multiple currencies.
You can change the symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings field.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by a forward slash as shown below …
If you specify another symbol and resave your settings …
Your website visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
Integration With e-Commerce Platforms
As stated earlier, the Currencyr plugin can be integrated with a number of WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image sourced from plugin site)
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add currency conversion to your WordPress site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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