Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce site or making goods available for sale worldwide? If so, then here’s a great idea: consider providing your potential customers with the convenience of currency conversion on your web site.
Currency conversion software tools allow your visitors to have the price of an international currency amount converted into their local currency when checking out products on e-commerce sites. It also allows your customers to see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their home currency.
The obvious advantage of adding currency conversion to your website is that it allows customers to view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for purchasers to work out their costs and expenses.
If your site is built with WordPress, you can add a currency converter to currency conversion to your WP website using a plugin, allowing your site visitors to easily calculate the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – Currency Converting Plugin For WP Sites
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. It’s also free to install and use on your WordPress website or blog.
Useful plugin features include:
- Inline converter
- Supports various exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates and FoxRates
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with a number of e-store plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically detects local currency
- Full support for language translations
Important: The Currencyr plugin needs 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. Ask your web host to upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins section and clicking “Install Now” …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can visit the plugin’s settings area by choosing Currencyr from your WordPress dashboard navigation menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings section …
For example, you can choose your base currency from a drop-down menu if you prefer something other than the default option ‘USD’ …
Similarly, you can select which data provider you want to use from a drop-down menu. The default option is Yahoo Finance, but you can also choose another provider, like FoxRate or Google Finance …
Note: If you select ‘Open Exchange Rates’, you will need to obtain an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can choose how often you want to update the exchange rates 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 allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (like WP plugins).
If you have no reason to modify the jQuery settings, you can simply ignore this section …
Configure the remainder of the plugin settings and click ‘Save Changes’ when done …
Once your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily start adding currency conversion to all of your WP blog’s posts and pages using shortcodes and widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, CAD, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to WP pages, posts and widgets with no coding knowledge using shortcodes.
Below are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to your WordPress pages and posts:
Let’s say that you sell your product online for a set amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to show the conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your page.
All you need to do is add the following shortcode to your page content …
Note: You can also add pricing in dollars and cents (for example, 89.95, 29.95, 400.00, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode looks when added to the post …
When the information has been published, the converted currency amount will then display like this …
Using the above example, let’s now translate the same price into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
The example below shows how the above shortcode looks when added to a page …
After publishing the post or page, the converted currency amounts will then display as you can see in the screenshot below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol within this plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you want to use a different base currency than the one you have set as your 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 customers from 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 content, the converted currency amounts will then display as shown in the screenshot below …
Using The Currencyr Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your site’s sidebar area using a widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar area, select Appearance > Widgets in your WordPress dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to an Active Widgets location …
Configure the widget settings as shown below (add any currency codes you would like displaying on your widget separated by a comma), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
The currency conversion tool will now display on the sidebar with the options you have specified …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful 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 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 amounts using a forward slash as shown below …
If you change the symbol and resave your plugin settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
Using The Plugin With WP-Compatible e-Commerce Software
As mentioned earlier, the Currencyr plugin can be integrated with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce and Shopp …
(image source: Currencyr plugin site)
Congratulations! Now you can go and easily add currency conversion to your WordPress website.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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