Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce site or selling products globally? If so, then it’s a great idea to consider providing your prospects with currency conversion.
Currency converting software tools allow your prospects to have the price of a foreign currency amount translated to their home currency at the point of sale. It also lets visitors see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their home currency.
One great benefit of putting currency conversion is that it lets visitors view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for purchasers to work out their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, you can add a currency converter to your WordPress website or blog, allowing your visitors to quickly and easily calculate the cost of your goods.
Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free!
Useful plugin features include:
- In-line converter
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with a number of online store plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency determination
- Supports full translations
Important: The Currencyr plugin requires PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP on your server. Ask your web hosting provider to update your PHP.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WP dashboard by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking “Install Now” …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your WordPress dashboard navigation menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings section …
For example, you can choose your base currency from the ‘Base Currency’ dropdown menu if you want a different currency than the default option ‘United States Dollar – (USD)’ …
Similarly, you can choose any supported data provider from a dropdown menu. The default selection is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can also choose another option, like European Central Bank or Google Finance …
Note: If you select ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) is required …
You can select how frequently you would like to update the exchange rates by specifying an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which 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, leave them as they are …
Configure the remainder of the settings to suit your needs and click ‘Save Changes’ when finished …
After you have finished configuring your plugin settings, you can easily start adding currency conversion to any of your WP site’s posts using shortcodes and widgets.
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 the Currencyr plugin.
Currencyr Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into pages, posts and widgets with no technical skills using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to your WP pages and posts:
Let’s say that you are selling a product online for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to show your amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your product sales page.
All you need to do is insert the following shortcode into your post or page …
Note: You can also display prices in dollars and cents (e.g. 165.49, 29.95, 544.97, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the above shortcode should look after you have inserted it into a post …
After publishing the page or post, your currency conversion will appear as you can see below …
Using the above example, let’s now convert the same price into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode appears when inserted into a page …
After publishing your page or post, the currency conversion will then appear as you can see in the example below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol in this plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you want to select a different base currency than the one you have 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 visitors from countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
Here’s how the shortcode appears when added to your content …
Once your post or page has been published, your currency conversion will then appear like this …
How To Use The Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your site’s sidebar section using a widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets in your WordPress dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to an ‘Active Widgets’ location …
Configure the widget options as shown below (add any currency codes you would like to display on your widget separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
Your currency conversion tool will now display on the sidebar with the options you have specified when configuring the widget …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional 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 change the symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings section.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency amounts with the forward slash as shown below …
If you change this symbol and resave your plugin settings …
Your website visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Software Integration
As stated earlier, the Currencyr plugin can be integrated with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image sourced from plugin website)
Congratulations! Now you can go and easily add a currency converter to your WordPress site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)