Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce website or selling goods worldwide? If so, then it’s a great idea to consider providing your web visitors with the convenience of currency conversion on your site.
Currency conversion tools let your site visitors have the price of a foreign currency transaction converted to their home currency when checking out products on e-commerce sites. It also lets your customers view the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their local currency.
One advantage of adding currency conversion is that it allows visitors to view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own home currency, making it it easier for visitors to work out their costs and expenses.
If your site is built using WordPress, it’s simple to add a currency converter to your WordPress site, allowing your prospective customers to quickly and easily calculate the cost of your products.
Currencyr – Currency Conversion Plugin For WP Web Sites
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique and attractive converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free!
Plugin features include:
- In-line converter
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Can be integrated with a number of e-store plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can detect local currency automatically
- Support for language translations
Note: The Currencyr plugin requires your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed. Alternatively, ask your web host to upgrade your PHP server installation if required.
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You can install the plugin from your WordPress admin area by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking “Install Now” …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your WordPress dashboard area …
This takes you to the plugin settings screen …
For example, you can choose a base currency from a dropdown menu if you want something other than the default option ’United States Dollar’ …
You can also select a data provider from a drop-down menu. The default selection is Yahoo Finance, but you can also select one of the other options, such as European Central Bank or Google Finance …
Note: If you choose ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) will be required …
You can select how frequently you would like the exchange rates to update by specifying an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (e.g. WP plugins).
If you have no reason to change the jQuery settings, just ignore this option …
Edit the rest of the plugin settings and don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button when you have configured all the settings on this page …
After you have configured your plugin settings, you can add currency conversion to any WordPress post or page using a shortcode.
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 …) in the Currencyr plugin.
Currencyr Shortcodes
You can insert currency conversion into WordPress pages, posts and widgets with no coding knowledge or skills using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to pages and posts:
Let’s say that you are selling a product for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show your 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 insert amounts in dollars and cents (e.g. 165.49, 189.00, 149.00, etc …)
The example below shows how the shortcode should look after being inserted into your post or page …
Once your page has been published, the currency conversion will display like this …
Using the above example, let’s now display the same price into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use the shortcode below (add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
The screenshot below shows how the above shortcode appears when inserted into a post …
After publishing the content, your converted currency will then appear like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol in the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s say that you would like to select a different base currency than the one you have selected 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 (like Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
Here’s how the above shortcode appears when inserted into your content …
Once the page has been published, the currency conversion will then appear like this …
Using The Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your site’s sidebar using the plugin’s widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets in the WordPress user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to an Active Widgets location …
Configure the widget options as shown below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to update your settings …
Your currency conversion tool will now show on the sidebar menu with the options you have specified …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you 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 field.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by a forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you change this symbol and resave your settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
Integration With e-Commerce Platforms
As described earlier, the Currencyr plugin integrates with a number of WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: plugin site)
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add currency conversion to your e-commerce site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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