Are you planning to set up an e-commerce site, or sell products online? If so, then here’s a good idea: think about providing your prospects with the convenience of currency conversion on your e-commerce web site.
Currency conversion software tools let your prospective customers translate international currency amounts into their home currency when purchasing products online. It also allows visitors and customers to see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their home currency.
The obvious advantage of showing currency conversion on your website is that it lets visitors view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own home currency, making it it easier for visitors to calculate their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, it’s really easy and simple to add currency conversion using a plugin to WordPress, allowing your site visitors to easily calculate the cost of your products.
Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a visually attractive converter tooltip. And, it’s free to install and use on your WordPress website.
The Currencyr plugin features:
- Inline converter
- Supports various exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Google and European Central Bank
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Supports integration with various e-store plugins like WooCommerce & Shopp.
- Automatic local currency determination
- Support for language translations
Note: This plugin requires your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP on your server. Alternatively, ask your web host to upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WP dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins section and clicking “Install Now” …
After you have installed and activated the plugin, you can access the plugin’s settings page by choosing Currencyr from your WP admin menu …
The plugin settings screen offers you many configuration settings …
For example, you can select your base currency from the ‘Base Currency’ drop-down menu if you prefer a different currency than the default option ’USD’ …
Similarly, you can specify a data provider from a dropdown menu. The default selection is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can also choose another option, like FoxRate or Google Finance …
Note: If you choose Open Exchange Rates as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) is required …
You can select how often you want the currency exchange rates to be updated by specifying an option from the ‘Update Rates’ dropdown menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (e.g. WP plugins).
Unless you have a reason to change the jQuery settings, you can just ignore this setting …
Configure the rest of the settings and don’t forget to click ‘Save Changes’ when done …
Once your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily start adding currency conversion to any WordPress page or post using shortcodes and widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, ZAR, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
How To Use Plugin Shortcodes
You can insert currency conversion into posts, pages and widgets with no coding knowledge or 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 sell an item on your website for a set amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to show the conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your product sales page.
All you need to do is insert the following shortcode to your page content …
Note: You can also add prices in dollars and cents (e.g. 165.49, 79.45, 544.97, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how your shortcode looks once you have added it to a product page …
After publishing your post or page, the currency conversion will appear as shown in the screenshot below …
Using the above example, let’s now translate the same amount into different currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
The screenshot below now shows how the shortcode appears when added to a page …
After publishing the content, your currency conversion will then display like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol within the Currencyr plugin.
Now, suppose you would like to specify a different base currency than the one set as your default.
For example, say you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your website targeted to non-European customers (e.g. Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the shortcode appears when added to a post …
After publishing the page, the currency conversion will then appear like this …
Using The Plugin Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your website or blog’s sidebar menu using a widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets from your WordPress dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to the ‘Active Widgets’ location …
Configure the widget settings as shown below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to update your settings …
The currency converter tool will now display on the sidebar menu with the options you have specified …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful information about using the plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin allows you to specify a symbol of your choice 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 the forward slash as shown below …
If you select another symbol and resave your settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
e-Commerce Software Integration
As stated earlier, the plugin can be integrated with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(above image sourced from Currencyr plugin website)
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add a currency converter to your WordPress website.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now