Are you planning to set up an e-commerce web site with WordPress, or sell any products to an international market? If so, then you may want to think about providing users with the convenience of currency conversion on your web site.
Currency converting tools allow your customers to translate foreign currency transactions to their home currency at the point of sale. It also allows customers to view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their own local currency.
One great benefit of displaying currency conversion is that it lets your customers see and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for purchasers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is built with WordPress, it’s quite easy to add currency conversion using a plugin to currency conversion to WordPress using a plugin, allowing your customers to quickly and easily calculate the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – WP Free Currency Converter
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a unique converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free to install and use on your WP site.
This currency conversion plugin includes great features such as:
- Inline converter
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, such as Google and Open Exchange Rates
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Supports integration with a number of e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically detects local currency
- Full language translation support
Note: 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 check and upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins area and clicking the “Install Now” button …
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your WordPress administration menu …
The plugin settings screen provides several configuration settings …
For example, you can select your base currency from a drop-down menu if you prefer to use a different currency than the default option (USD) …
You can also select any supported data provider from the dropdown menu in the Provider section. The default option is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can also select one of the other options, such as FoxRate 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 often you want the currency exchange rates to be updated by choosing an option from the Update Rates drop-down menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which is an open-source library of Javascript code that lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (like WP plugins).
Unless there is a reason to change the jQuery settings, leave them as they are …
Configure the rest of the plugin settings and remember to click the ‘Save Changes’ button when done …
After you have configured your plugin settings, you can start adding currency conversion to your WordPress posts or pages using a shortcode.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, ZAR, etc …) in this plugin.
Using Currencyr Shortcodes
You can insert currency conversion into WordPress posts, pages and widgets without having to edit code using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to pages and posts:
Let’s say that you retail your product for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show your price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your product sales page.
All you need to do is insert the shortcode below to your page content …
Note: You can also add prices in dollars and cents (e.g. 165.49, 37.95, 1356.87, etc …)
The example below shows how the above shortcode should look when inserting it into your page …
After your post has been published, your converted currency amount will appear as you can see below …
Using the same example, let’s also translate the same price into multiple currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
The example below now shows how the above shortcode looks when inserted into a post …
Once your page has been published, the currency conversion will then appear like this …
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 say that you would like 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 website targeted to non-European customers (e.g. Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The screenshot below now shows how the shortcode appears when added to a post …
Once your post or page has been published, the currency conversion will then appear as you can see below …
Currencyr Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your website or blog’s sidebar using the Currencyr widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar menu, select Appearance > Widgets from your WordPress dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to the ‘Active Widgets’ location …
Configure the widget settings as shown below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click Save to update your settings …
The currency conversion tool will now appear on your site’s sidebar menu with the options you have selected …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful information about using the Currencyr plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin allows you to specify the symbol 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 select another symbol and resave your plugin settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
Integration With WP e-Commerce Platforms
As described earlier, the plugin integrates with a number of WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Shopp …
(image source: plugin website)
And there you have it! Now you know how to easily add currency conversion to your e-commerce website.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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