Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce site or making products available for sale online? If so, then it’s a great idea to consider providing users with currency conversion.
Currency conversion software tools allow your visitors to have the cost of a foreign currency transaction translated into their home currency when purchasing or checking out products on e-commerce sites. It also allows your visitors and customers to see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their local currency.
The obvious advantage of adding currency conversion is that it lets your customers see and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own local currency, making it it easier for purchasers to work out their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, you can add a currency conversion plugin to currency conversion to your website using a plugin, allowing your visitors to quickly understand the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – WP Currency Converter
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. And, it’s completely free to install and use on your WP website or blog.
This plugin includes features like:
- In-line converter
- Supports various exchange rates providers, like Google, Open Exchange Rates and European Central Bank
- Supports Shortcodes
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with a number of online store plugins like WooCommerce, Shop and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically determines local currency
- 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 on your server. Alternatively, ask your web hosting company to upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WP dashboard by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking the “Install Now” button …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your WordPress dashboard menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings page …
For example, you can select your base currency from a drop-down menu. The default option is ’United States Dollar’ …
You can specify any supported data provider from a dropdown menu. The default selection is Yahoo Finance, but you can select one of the other options, like European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select Open Exchange Rates, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can select how frequently you want to update the currency exchange rates 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 (such as WP plugins).
If you have no reason to modify the jQuery settings, just ignore this option …
Configure the rest of the settings according to your own needs and don’t forget to click Save Changes when done …
When you have configured your plugin settings, you can easily add currency conversion to WordPress posts using shortcodes.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the end of this tutorial to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, CAD, etc …) with the Currencyr plugin.
Using Plugin Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into WordPress posts, pages and widgets with no technical skills or knowledge using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WordPress posts and pages:
Let’s say that you are selling an item for a set amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to display the price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your page.
To display this information, you simply need to add the shortcode below into your post or page …
Note: You can also add amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 6.95, 97.00, 149.00, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode looks after being inserted into a post …
After publishing the post or page, your currency conversion will appear like this …
Using this example, let’s also convert the same price into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode looks when added to a post …
After publishing your post, the converted currency will then display like this …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol in the Currencyr plugin.
Now, suppose you want to specify a different base currency than the one you have set as your default.
For example, if you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site 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 you add it to a post …
After publishing the page or post, the converted currency amounts will then appear like this …
Currencyr Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your website or blog’s sidebar using a widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets from your WordPress user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to the Active Widgets area …
Configure the widget options as shown in the example below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click ‘Save’ to update your settings …
The currency conversion tool will now appear on your sidebar menu with the options you have specified when configuring the widget …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional 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 section.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your prices using a forward slash as shown below …
If you change the symbol and resave your plugin settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
e-Commerce Platform Integration
As stated earlier, the Currencyr plugin can be integrated with various WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: Currencyr plugin site)
And there you have it! Now you can go and easily add currency conversion to your WordPress website.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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