Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce site or making products available for sale online? If so, you should consider providing users with the convenience of currency conversion on your e-commerce website.
Currency conversion software tools let your web visitors translate international currency pricing to their local currency at the point of sale. It also lets your customers view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their local currency.
One great advantage of showing currency conversion on your site is that it lets your customers view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for customers to calculate their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, it’s simple to add currency conversion using a plugin to WordPress, allowing your customers to quickly and easily calculate the cost of your products.
Currencyr – WordPress Currency Conversion Plugin
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. It’s also free!
Some of the features of this plugin include the following:
- In-line converter
- Supports several exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Google and European Central Bank
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with a number of e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can detect local currency automatically
- Full translation support
Important: The Currencyr plugin requires PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed. Ask your web host to check and upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WordPress admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins section and clicking “Install Now” …
When the plugin has been installed and activated, you can visit the plugin’s settings area by selecting Currencyr from your WP dashboard navigation menu …
The plugin settings area offers you several configuration options …
For example, you can select your base currency from the ‘Base Currency’ drop-down menu if you want a different currency than the default option ’USD’ …
Similarly, you can specify a data provider from the drop-down menu in the ‘Provider’ section. The default provider is Yahoo Finance, but you can select another provider, like European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select ‘Open Exchange Rates’, an API (Application Programming Interface) is required …
You can select how often you want the exchange rates to update by specifying an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which is an open-source library of Javascript code that lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WordPress plugins).
Unless there is a reason to edit the jQuery settings, simply ignore this section …
Configure the rest of the plugin settings and remember to click the ‘Save Changes’ button when done …
After you have configured your plugin settings, you can easily add currency conversion to WP posts using shortcodes and widgets.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, ZAR, etc …) in this plugin.
Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to WordPress posts, pages and widgets with no technical knowledge 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 online for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would like to display your conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your page.
To display this information, you simply need to add the shortcode below into your page content …
Note: You can also insert amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 165.49, 97.00, 295.75, etc …)
The example below shows how your shortcode looks after being inserted into a page or post …
After publishing your post, the converted currency amount will appear as you can see below …
Using this example, let’s also convert the same amount into different currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
The screenshot below now shows how the above shortcode looks when added to a post …
After publishing the content, your converted currency amounts will then appear as shown below …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol with the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s say that you want to specify a different base currency than the one you have selected as the default.
For example, if you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your e-commerce pages targeted to non-European customers (e.g. Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
Here’s how the above shortcode looks when inserted into a post …
Once your post or page has been published, your currency conversion will then appear as you can see below …
Using The Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your website or blog’s sidebar using the Currencyr widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets from your WordPress admin 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 show on the sidebar menu with the options you have specified when configuring the widget …
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 change the symbol in the Multiple Separator settings section.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency amounts with the forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you enter another symbol and update your settings …
Your web visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
Integration With WordPress e-Commerce Platforms
As mentioned earlier, the plugin can be integrated with a number of WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(above image sourced from Currencyr plugin site)
And there you have it! Now you know how to easily add currency conversion to your WordPress web site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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