Are you planning to set up an e-commerce web site using WordPress, or sell goods or services worldwide? If so, then here’s a great idea: consider providing your web visitors with currency conversion.
Currency conversion tools allow your prospective customers to have the cost of an international currency amount translated to their home currency when checking out products on e-commerce sites. It also allows visitors to view the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their home currency.
One great advantage of adding currency conversion to your website is that it lets customers view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for visitors to work out their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, it’s simple to add currency conversion using a plugin to currency conversion to your WordPress website via a plugin, allowing your customers to easily calculate the cost of your products.
Currencyr – WordPress Free Currency Converter
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free to install and use on your website or blog.
This currency conversion WordPress plugin features:
- In-line converter
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- Supports Shortcodes
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Can be integrated with a number of e-store plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can detect local currency automatically
- Support for language translations
Note: This plugin needs 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 host to upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the plugin from your WordPress admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins area and clicking “Install Now” …
After you have installed and activated the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your administration menu …
The plugin settings area offers you various configuration settings …
For example, you can select a base currency from a dropdown menu if you prefer something other than the default option ‘USD’ …
Similarly, you can select which data provider you want to use from the dropdown menu in the ‘Provider’ section. The default option is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can also choose one of the other options, like European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select Open Exchange Rates as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) will be required …
You can choose how frequently you want the currency exchange rates to update by selecting an option from the Update Rates dropdown menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which is an open-source library of Javascript code that allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to edit the jQuery settings, simply ignore this option …
Edit the rest of the plugin settings to suit your preferences and remember to click the Save Changes button when you have configured all of your options …
When you have finished configuring your plugin settings, you can add currency conversion to any WordPress page or post using shortcodes.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the end of this tutorial to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, CAD, etc …) with this plugin.
Plugin Shortcodes
You can easily add currency conversion to pages, posts and widgets without touching your web templates using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WP pages and posts:
Let’s say that you are selling an item on your website 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 page.
All you need to do is insert the shortcode below into your page content …
Note: You can also insert amounts in dollars and cents (e.g. 175.00, 37.95, 129.10, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how your shortcode looks once you have added it to the product page …
After publishing your page or post, the currency conversion will display as you can see below …
Using the same example, let’s also translate the same amount into different currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
The example below now shows how the shortcode looks when inserted into a post …
Once the page or post has been published, the converted currency will then appear like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol in the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s say that you want to select a different base currency than the one set 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 …
You can see how the above shortcode appears when you add it to a page …
After publishing your page or post, the converted currency will then display like this …
Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your website’s sidebar section using a widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets from the WP dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to an Active Widgets area …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the screenshot below (add any currency codes you want displaying on your widget separated by a comma), and click Save to update your settings …
Your currency conversion tool will now appear on your website’s sidebar menu with the settings you have selected …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you specify the symbol to display as the currency separator when using several currencies.
You can select a different symbol in the Multiple Separator settings field.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by a forward slash as shown below …
If you change this symbol and update your plugin settings …
Your website visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Platform Integration
As stated earlier, the plugin can be integrated with a number of WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image sourced from plugin site)
Congratulations! Now you can go and 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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