Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce web site or making goods available for sale worldwide? If so, then here’s a good idea: think about providing users with the convenience of currency conversion on your web site.
Currency conversion tools allow your site visitors to convert international currency amounts to their home currency at the point of sale. It also allows your customers to see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their home currency.
One advantage of adding currency conversion is that it allows visitors to see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for customers to work out their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, you can add currency conversion via a plugin to your website, allowing your customers to easily work out the cost of your products.
Currencyr
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a unique and attractive converter tooltip. It’s also free!
This currency conversion plugin features:
- In-line conversion tool
- Supports various exchange rates providers, such as Google, Open Exchange Rates and European Central Bank
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Can be integrated with various online shopping plugins such as WooCommerce & Shopp.
- Can detect local currency automatically
- Translation support
Important: 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 webhosting support team to upgrade your PHP server installation if necessary.
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You can install the currency conversion 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 section by selecting Currencyr from your dashboard area …
The plugin settings page provides various configuration options …
For example, you can select your base currency from the Base Currency drop-down menu if you prefer to use a different currency than the default option ‘USD’ …
You can select a data provider from the drop-down menu in the Provider section. The default selection is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can also select another option, like FoxRate or Google Finance …
Note: If you select Open Exchange Rates, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can select how often you would like to update the exchange rates by selecting an option from the Update Rates dropdown menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (like WordPress plugins).
Unless you have a reason to change the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Configure the remainder of the plugin settings and click Save Changes when finished …
Once you have configured your plugin settings, you can easily add currency conversion to any WP page or post using a shortcode.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, JPY, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
Currencyr Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to WP pages, posts and widgets with no web coding skills using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to your WP pages and posts:
Let’s say that you are selling your products online for a set amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would like to display your conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your product sales page.
To do this, simply insert the following shortcode to your page content …
Note: You can also display amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 89.95, 97.00, 149.00, etc …)
The example below shows how the above shortcode looks after being added to the product page …
After publishing your page, the currency conversion will then appear as shown below …
Using the above example, let’s now translate the same amount into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode appears when added to a page …
Once the page or post has been published, the currency conversion will then display as you can see below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol with the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you want to use a different base currency than the one set as your default.
For example, if you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to visitors from countries like 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 post or page, the currency conversion will then display as you can see in the screenshot below …
Plugin Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your site’s sidebar section using the plugin’s widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar menu, choose Appearance > Widgets in the WP dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to an ‘Active Widgets’ location …
Configure the widget settings as shown below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click Save to save your settings …
The currency converter will now display on your sidebar menu with the options you have selected …
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 change the symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings section.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your prices with a forward slash as you can see in the example below …
If you enter another symbol and update your plugin settings …
Your site visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
e-Commerce Software Integration
As mentioned earlier, the plugin can be integrated with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image sourced from Currencyr plugin website)
And there you have it! Now you know how to easily add currency conversion to your e-commerce web site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)