Do you plan to set up an e-commerce site using WordPress, or sell goods worldwide? If so, you should probably consider providing users with a currency conversion service.
Currency conversion allows your visitors to have the price of a foreign currency transaction translated to their home currency at the point of sale. It also allows your visitors and customers to see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their own home currency.
The obvious benefit of adding currency conversion is that it allows your customers to see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for purchasers to work out their costs and expenses.
If your site is built using WordPress, it’s quite easy and simple to add currency conversion using a plugin to WordPress, allowing your site visitors to quickly work out the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – WP Free Currency Converter
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a visually attractive converter tooltip. It’s also free to install and use on your WP website.
Some of the useful features of this useful plugin include the following:
- In-line conversion tool
- Supports various exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates & European Central Bank
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Supports integration with various e-store plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can detect local currency automatically
- Translation support
Note: This plugin needs your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP. Ask your web host to update your PHP.
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You can install the plugin from your WP admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins section and clicking “Install Now” …
When you have installed and activated the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your admin menu …
The plugin settings screen provides a number of configuration options …
For example, you can select a base currency from a drop-down menu. The default base currency is ‘USD’ …
Similarly, you can specify which data provider you want to use from a dropdown menu. The default selection is Yahoo Finance, but you can also choose another provider, like European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose ‘Open Exchange Rates’, you will need to enter an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can choose how often you want to update the exchange rates by selecting an option from the Update Rates dropdown menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WordPress plugins).
Unless there is a reason to modify the jQuery settings, simply ignore this option …
Configure the rest of the plugin settings to suit your preferences and remember to click the ‘Save Changes’ button when done …
Once your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily start adding currency conversion to WP website’s pages using shortcodes.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, JPY, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into WP posts, pages and widgets with no technical knowledge using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to your WordPress pages and posts:
Let’s say that you are selling an item online for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to display the price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your page.
To display this information, simply insert the shortcode below into your post or page …
Note: You can also insert amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 19.95, 29.95, 129.10, etc …)
The example below shows how the above shortcode will look after you have inserted it into a page or post …
When your post or page has been published, the converted currency amount will display as shown below …
Using the same example, let’s also display the same amount into different currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
The example below shows how the shortcode looks when added to a page …
After publishing your page, your converted currency will then appear like this …
refer to 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 would like to specify a different base currency than the one set as your default.
For example, if you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to customers in countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The example below shows how the shortcode appears when added to a post …
Once the post or page has been published, your currency conversion will then appear like this …
Currencyr Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your website or blog’s sidebar area 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 add it to the Active Widgets location …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the screenshot below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click Save to save your settings …
The currency conversion tool will now display on your sidebar with the options you have specified …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the Currencyr plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you specify the symbol to display as the currency separator when using multiple currencies.
You can change the symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings field.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by the forward slash as shown below …
If you modify this symbol and update your settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Integration
As stated earlier, the Currencyr plugin integrates with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WP-eCommerce and Shopp …
(image source: plugin website)
Congratulations! Now you can go and easily add currency conversion to your WordPress site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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