Are you planning to sell any products online worldwide? If so, then you should probably think about providing your web visitors with the convenience of currency conversion on your e-commerce site.
Currency converting software allows your visitors to have the cost of an international currency amount converted into their local currency when purchasing or checking out products online. It also allows visitors and customers to see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their own home currency.
The obvious advantage of adding currency conversion to your site is that it lets customers view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for visitors to work out their costs and expenses.
If your site is powered by WordPress, it’s easy to add a currency conversion plugin to your WP website, allowing your site visitors to quickly and easily work out the cost of your products.
WordPress Free Currency Converter – Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. It’s also free to install and use on your WordPress web site.
The Currencyr useful plugin features:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, such as Google, Open Exchange Rates & European Central Bank
- Supports Shortcodes
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Can be integrated with various online store plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically detects local currency
- Full translation support
Important: This plugin needs 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 plugin from your WP dashboard by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking “Install Now” …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, you can access the plugin’s settings area by selecting Currencyr from your dashboard area …
The plugin settings area provides a number of configuration options …
For example, you can select your base currency from a dropdown menu. The default base currency is (‘USD’) …
You can also select which data provider you want to use from a dropdown menu. The default provider is Yahoo Finance, but you can select another provider, like FoxRate or Google Finance …
Note: If you choose ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) is required …
You can choose how often you would like the exchange rates to be updated by specifying 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 (e.g. WP plugins).
If you have no reason to edit the jQuery settings, you can simply ignore this option …
Edit the rest of the settings and click the Save Changes button when finished …
Once your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily start adding currency conversion to your WP pages and posts using shortcodes.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, JPY, etc …) with the Currencyr plugin.
Using Plugin Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to WP pages, posts and widgets without touching your web templates using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to posts and pages:
Let’s say that you retail your products online for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show this price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your page.
To display this information, simply add the shortcode below into your page content …
Note: You can also add prices in dollars and cents (e.g. 175.00, 189.00, 149.00, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode looks when added to a post or page …
Once your page or post has been published, your currency conversion will then display as shown below …
Using this example, let’s also translate the same amount into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode appears when added to a post …
After publishing the information, the converted currency amounts will then display as shown in the screenshot below …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the end of this tutorial to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol within this plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you want to specify a different base currency than the one you have set as your default.
For example, say you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your e-commerce pages targeted to customers in countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The example below shows how the above shortcode looks when you add it to your content …
After publishing your post, your currency conversion will then appear as seen in the example below …
How To Use The Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your website or blog’s sidebar using the plugin’s widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets in the WordPress admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to the Active Widgets area …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the screenshot below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click Save to save your settings …
The currency conversion tool will now display on your site’s sidebar with the options you have specified …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful information about using the Currencyr plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you specify the symbol to display as the currency separator when using several currencies.
You can change the symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings section.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency values using a forward slash as shown below …
If you modify this symbol and update your settings …
Your website visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
WordPress E-Commerce
As stated earlier, the plugin can be integrated with various WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: plugin website)
And there you have it! 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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