Are you planning to set up an e-commerce site, or sell goods online? If so, you should probably consider providing users with a currency conversion feature.
Currency conversion software lets your prospects have the cost of a foreign currency amount converted into their local currency at the purchase or checkout phase. It also allows your customers to see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their own home currency.
One great advantage of adding currency conversion to your site is that it lets visitors view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own local currency, making it it easier for purchasers to calculate their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, it’s easy and simple to add a currency converter to currency conversion to WordPress using a plugin, allowing your site visitors to quickly and easily perform currency conversions to determine the cost of your goods.
Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. It’s also free!
The Currencyr useful WordPress plugin features:
- In-line conversion tool
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, such as Google, Open Exchange Rates & FoxRates
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with various online shopping plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency detection
- Translation support
Note: This plugin requires PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP on your server. Ask your web host to check and upgrade your PHP server installation.
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You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking the “Install Now” button …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your WP admin navigation menu …
The plugin settings screen offers you many configuration settings …
For example, you can choose a base currency from a drop-down menu. The default currency is ‘USD’ …
You can also specify a data provider from a dropdown menu. The default provider is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can select another option, like European Central Bank or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose Open Exchange Rates, you will need to obtain an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can specify how frequently you would like to update the exchange rates by selecting an option from the Update Rates dropdown menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (e.g. WP plugins).
Unless you have a reason to change the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Configure the remainder of the settings to suit your preferences and click the ‘Save Changes’ button when finished …
Once you have finished configuring your settings, you can easily add currency conversion to all of your WordPress posts and pages using shortcodes.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, JPY, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into pages, posts and widgets without touching your web templates using shortcodes.
Below are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to pages and posts:
Let’s say that you sell an item for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to display the conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your page.
To do this, you simply need to insert the following shortcode into your page content …
Note: You can also display amounts in dollars and cents (e.g. 89.95, 79.45, 400.00, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the above shortcode should look after being inserted into the page or post …
After the content has been published, the converted currency will then display as you can see in the screenshot below …
Using the above example, let’s also display the same price into different currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode below (you can add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
The example below now shows how the above shortcode looks when added to a page …
Once the post has been published, your converted currency will then appear like this …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the end of this tutorial to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol with 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, say you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your website targeted to non-European visitors (like Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the shortcode looks when added to your content …
Once the information has been published, your converted currency amounts will then display as seen below …
Using The Currencyr Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your website or blog’s sidebar using a widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets from your 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 options as shown in the screenshot below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
Your currency converter will now show on the sidebar menu with the settings you have specified when configuring the widget …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful information about using the Currencyr plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin allows you to specify a symbol of your choice to display as the currency separator when using multiple currencies.
You can select a different symbol in the Multiple Separator settings section.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency amounts with a forward slash as shown below …
If you enter another symbol and resave your plugin settings …
Your web visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
WordPress E-Commerce
As described earlier, the Currencyr plugin integrates with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, Shopp and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image sourced from plugin site)
And there you have it! 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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