Do you plan to set up a WordPress-based e-commerce site, or sell any products worldwide? If so, then it’s a great idea to consider providing your potential customers with the convenience of currency conversion on your e-commerce website.
Currency conversion software allows your prospective customers to convert international currency transactions into their local currency at the point of sale. It also lets visitors see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their own local currency.
One benefit of adding 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 work out their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, it’s quite easy and simple to add currency conversion via a plugin to WordPress, allowing your customers to quickly perform currency conversions to determine the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – WP Currency Converter
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free to install and use on your WordPress website or blog.
The Currencyr plugin includes great features like the following:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates & European Central Bank
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with various e-store plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can detect local currency automatically
- Translation support
Note: This plugin requires your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP on your server. Alternatively, ask your web hosting company to check and upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the plugin from your WordPress admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins screen and clicking the “Install” button …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, you can get to the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your WordPress dashboard menu …
The plugin settings page provides several configuration settings …
For example, you can select your base currency from the Base Currency dropdown menu if you prefer to use something other than the default option ‘United States Dollar – (USD)’ …
Similarly, you can specify which data provider you want to use from a drop-down menu. The default selection is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can select another provider, like European Central Bank or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose ‘Open Exchange Rates’, an API (Application Programming Interface) will be required …
You can choose how frequently you would like to update the currency exchange rates by selecting an option from the Update Rates dropdown menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (like WP plugins).
If you have no reason to change the jQuery settings, simply ignore this section …
Edit the rest of the plugin settings to suit your needs and don’t forget to click ‘Save Changes’ when you have configured all of your settings …
When you have configured your settings, you can start adding currency conversion to WP pages or posts using shortcodes.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, CAD, etc …) with the Currencyr plugin.
How To Use Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into pages, posts and widgets with no technical skills using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to posts and pages:
Let’s say that you retail goods for a set amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to display the amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
To do this, you simply need to insert the shortcode below to your page content …
Note: You can also display prices in dollars and cents (e.g. 165.49, 97.00, 129.10, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the above shortcode will look after you have added it to a post or page …
After publishing the content, the currency conversion will then display as shown in the screenshot below …
Using this example, let’s now convert the same price into different currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode below (add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
The example below now shows how the shortcode looks when inserted into a post …
After publishing the page, your converted currency amounts will then display as shown in the screenshot below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol within this plugin.
Now, suppose you would like to specify a different base currency than the one set as the default.
For example, say you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to customers from countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
Here’s how the above shortcode looks when you add it to a page …
After publishing your page or post, the converted currency will then appear like this …
Plugin Widget
You can also add a currency converter to your website’s sidebar section using the plugin’s widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets from the WordPress user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to the 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 appear on your sidebar menu with the options you have selected …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin allows you to specify a symbol of your choice to display as the currency separator when using several currencies.
You can select a different symbol in the Multiple Separator settings section.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by the forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you specify another symbol and resave your plugin settings …
Your web visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Platform Integration
As described earlier, the plugin can be integrated with a number of WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image sourced from Currencyr plugin site)
Congratulations! Now you can go and easily add currency conversion to your WordPress web site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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