Are you planning to set up a WordPress-based e-commerce site, or sell any products online? If so, you may want to think about providing your prospects with currency conversion.
Currency conversion lets your prospects translate international currency amounts into their local currency at the point of sale. It also allows your visitors to view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their home currency.
The obvious benefit of adding currency conversion is that it allows your customers to view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for customers to work out their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, you can add currency conversion via a plugin to WordPress, allowing your customers to easily work out the cost of your goods.
WP Currency Converting Plugin – Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a unique converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free to install and use on your website or blog.
Some of the features of this plugin include:
- In-line conversion tool
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with various e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency detection
- Supports full translations
Important: This plugin requires PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed. Alternatively, ask your web host to upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WP dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins section and clicking the ”Install Now” button …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your WP dashboard area …
The plugin settings screen provides a number of configuration settings …
For example, you can choose your base currency from the ‘Base Currency’ dropdown menu if you prefer to use a different currency than the default option ‘USD’ …
Similarly, you can choose which data provider you want to use from a drop-down menu. The default selection is Yahoo Finance, but you can 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, you will need to enter an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can choose how frequently you want the exchange rates to be updated by choosing an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to modify the jQuery settings, just ignore this option …
Configure the remainder of the settings and click Save Changes when you have finished configuring all the settings on this page …
When your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily start adding currency conversion to any WordPress post using shortcodes.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, ZAR, etc …) with this plugin.
Currencyr Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to WordPress pages, posts and widgets with no programming knowledge or skills using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WordPress pages and posts:
Let’s say that you sell a product for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to show the conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your product information page.
All you need to do is add the following shortcode to your page content …
Note: You can also add prices in dollars and cents (e.g. 16.95, 29.95, 400.00, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode will look after being added to a page …
After publishing the content, your converted currency amount will appear like this …
Using this example, let’s also display the same amount into different currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (you can add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode looks when you add it to a page …
After publishing the post, the currency conversion will then display as shown in the example below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol within the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s say that you would like to specify a different base currency than the one selected 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 visitors in countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The screenshot below shows how the above shortcode appears when inserted into a post …
After publishing your page, your converted currency will then display like this …
Currencyr Widget
You can also add a currency converter to your website’s sidebar using the Currencyr widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets from your WordPress dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to an Active Widgets area …
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 appear on your sidebar with the options you have specified when configuring the widget …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful 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 change the symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings field.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency values with a forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you modify this symbol and update your settings …
Your web visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
WordPress E-Commerce
As described earlier, the Currencyr plugin integrates with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image sourced from Currencyr plugin site)
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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