Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce website or selling products worldwide? If so, then you should consider providing your prospects with a currency conversion tool.
Currency converting software lets your prospects translate foreign currency prices to their home currency at the buying or checkout phase. It also lets visitors see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their own local currency.
The obvious advantage of adding currency conversion is that it allows your customers to view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for visitors to calculate their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, it’s quite easy to add a currency conversion plugin to your website, allowing your prospective customers to quickly determine the cost of your goods.
Currencyr
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique and attractive converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free to install and use on your site.
This useful WP plugin features:
- Inline converter
- Supports various exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates and European Central Bank
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with various e-store plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency detection
- Supports full translations
Note: The Currencyr plugin needs PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed. Alternatively, ask your webhosting support team to upgrade your PHP.
***
You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WordPress admin area by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking “Install Now” …
After the plugin has been installed and activated, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your admin menu …
The plugin settings area provides many configuration options …
For example, you can select a base currency from a dropdown menu. The default option is ‘United States Dollar – (USD)’ …
You can specify any supported data provider from the dropdown menu in the ‘Provider’ section. The default selection is Yahoo Finance, but you can also choose another option, such as European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose Open Exchange Rates, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can specify how often you would like to update the currency exchange rates by specifying an option from the Update Rates drop-down menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WP plugins).
If you have no reason to modify the jQuery settings, just ignore this section …
Edit the rest of the plugin settings according to your needs and remember to click Save Changes when done …
Once your plugin settings have been configured, you can start adding currency conversion to your WordPress blog’s pages and posts using shortcodes.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, JPY, etc …) in this plugin.
Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into WordPress posts, pages and widgets with no coding 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 are selling a product for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show this conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
All you need to do is insert the following shortcode to your post or page …
Note: You can also insert pricing in dollars and cents (e.g. 6.95, 97.00, 295.75, etc …)
The example below shows how the shortcode should look when added to your product page …
After publishing your post or page, your converted currency amount will then appear like this …
Using the above example, let’s now display the same price into different currency formats.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
The example below shows how the shortcode looks when added to a page …
After publishing the information, the converted currency will then display like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol within this plugin.
Now, let’s say that you would like to use a different base currency than the one selected as the default.
For example, if you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to visitors in countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The screenshot below shows how the above shortcode looks when added to a post …
Once your post or page has been published, your converted currency amounts will then display like this …
How To Use The Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your website’s sidebar area using the plugin’s widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets in your WordPress admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag 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 converter will now appear on your website’s sidebar with the settings you have specified when configuring the widget …
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 change the symbol in the Multiple Separator settings field.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency values with the forward slash as you can see in the example below …
If you choose another symbol and resave your settings …
Your website visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
e-Commerce Software Integration
As described earlier, the plugin can be integrated with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: plugin site)
Congratulations! Now you can go and easily add currency conversion to your e-commerce web site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
***
"Your training is the best in the world! It is simple, yet detailed, direct, understandable, memorable, and complete." Andrea Adams, FinancialJourney.org