Do you plan to set up an e-commerce site, or sell products globally? If so, you may want to think about providing your potential customers with the convenience of currency conversion on your site.
Currency converting software tools let your prospective customers have the price of an international currency amount converted to their local currency at the buying or checkout phase. It also allows your customers to see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their local currency.
One great benefit of putting currency conversion on your website is that it lets your customers view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own local currency, making it it easier for visitors to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is built with WordPress, you can add a currency conversion plugin to currency conversion to WordPress via a plugin, allowing your customers to quickly calculate the cost of your products.
WordPress Free Currency Converter – Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique converter tooltip. It’s also free!
Some of the useful features of this useful plugin include the following:
- Inline converter
- Supports various exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Google & European Central Bank
- Supports Shortcodes
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with a number of online store plugins such as WP-eCommerce & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can determine local currency automatically
- Supports full translations
Note: 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 check and upgrade your PHP server installation.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WordPress dashboard by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking “Install Now” …
After you have installed and activated the plugin, you can visit the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your administration area …
This takes you to the plugin settings screen …
For example, you can choose your base currency from the Base Currency drop-down menu if you prefer to use something other than the default option ’United States Dollar’ …
You can select which data provider you want to use from a drop-down menu. The default option is Yahoo Finance, but you can select one of the other options, like European Central Bank or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select Open Exchange Rates, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can choose how often you would like the currency exchange rates to be updated by specifying an option from the Update Rates drop-down menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WP plugins).
Unless you have a reason to change the jQuery settings, you can simply ignore this setting …
Edit the rest of the plugin settings and click ‘Save Changes’ when you have configured this screen …
Once your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily start adding currency conversion to your WordPress pages or posts using a shortcode.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, JPY, etc …) in this plugin.
Currencyr Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into WP pages, posts and widgets with no web coding skills or knowledge using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WordPress posts and pages:
Let’s say that you sell goods for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show the amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your product information page.
All you need to do is add the following shortcode into your post or page …
Note: You can also display pricing in dollars and cents (for example, 188.35, 47.00, 544.97, etc …)
The example below shows how your shortcode should look when inserting it into your page or post …
After publishing the post or page, the converted currency amount will display like this …
Using the above example, let’s now convert the same price into multiple currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode below (add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode appears when you add it to your content …
After publishing your information, your converted currency will then display like this …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol in the Currencyr plugin.
Now, suppose you would like to select 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 non-European customers (for example, Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
Here’s how the above shortcode looks when inserted into a page …
Once your content has been published, the converted currency will then appear as you can see in the screenshot below …
Currencyr Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your site’s sidebar area using a widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar area, select Appearance > Widgets in your WordPress admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to an ‘Active Widgets’ area …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the screenshot below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click Save to update your settings …
The currency conversion tool will now display on the sidebar with the options you have specified when configuring the widget …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful information about using the plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you specify the symbol to display as the currency separator when using several currencies.
You can select a different symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings field.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency values using the forward slash as you can see in the example below …
If you modify the symbol and resave your plugin settings …
Your web visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
e-Commerce Software Integration
As stated earlier, the Currencyr plugin integrates with various WP-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image sourced from plugin site)
And there you have it! Now you know how to easily add a currency converter to your e-commerce site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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