Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce website or selling products worldwide? If so, then you may want to think about providing users with currency conversion.
Currency converting tools allow your prospective customers to translate foreign currency pricing into their local currency when checking out products on e-commerce sites. It also allows customers to view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their home currency.
The obvious benefit of adding currency conversion to your website is that it allows your customers to see and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for visitors to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is built using WordPress, it’s easy to add a currency conversion plugin to WordPress, allowing your visitors to easily perform currency conversions to determine the cost of your products.
Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a visually attractive converter tooltip. It’s also free to install and use on your web site.
This currency conversion WordPress plugin features:
- Inline converter
- Supports several exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates and FoxRates
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with various e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically determines local currency
- Full translation support
Important: The Currencyr plugin requires your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed. Ask your webhosting support team to upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WP admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins section and clicking the “Install” button …
After you have installed and activated the plugin, you can access the plugin’s settings page by selecting Currencyr from your WP admin menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings area …
For example, you can select a base currency from a dropdown menu. The default currency is ‘United States Dollar – (USD)’ …
Similarly, you can choose any supported data provider from the dropdown menu in the Provider section. The default provider is Yahoo Finance, but you can choose another provider, like European Central Bank or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose ‘Open Exchange Rates’, an API (Application Programming Interface) will be required …
You can choose how often 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 (such as WP plugins).
If you have no reason to change the jQuery settings, you can simply ignore this option …
Edit the rest of the plugin settings to suit your own preferences and don’t forget to click the Save Changes button when done …
After you have finished configuring your plugin settings, you can easily start adding currency conversion to any WP page using a shortcode.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, JPY, etc …) in this plugin.
How To Use Plugin Shortcodes
You can insert currency conversion into posts, pages and widgets without editing code using shortcodes.
Below are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to pages and posts:
Let’s say that you sell your product for a set amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to show this price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your page.
To display this information, you will need to add the following shortcode to your post or page …
Note: You can also add prices in dollars and cents (e.g. 165.49, 79.45, 399.99, etc …)
The example below shows how your shortcode looks after being added to a post …
Once your page has been published, the converted currency amount will then appear like this …
Using this example, let’s also display the same price into different currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode appears when inserted into your content …
Once your content has been published, the converted currency amounts will then display as seen in the screenshot below …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol in this plugin.
Now, let’s say that you would like to use a different base currency than the one you have set as the default.
For example, say you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your e-commerce pages targeted to non-European customers (like Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode looks when you add it to a page …
After publishing the post or page, the converted currency will then appear as you can see below …
How To Use The Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your site’s sidebar using the Currencyr widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar menu, select Appearance > Widgets from the WP admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to an Active Widgets area …
Configure the widget options as shown in the example below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click Save to update your settings …
The currency converter tool will now show on your website’s sidebar menu with the options you have selected …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you specify a symbol of your choice 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, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency values using a forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you specify another symbol and resave your plugin settings …
Your site visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
Integration With WordPress e-Commerce Platforms
As mentioned earlier, the plugin integrates with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: Currencyr plugin site)
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add a currency converter to your WordPress web site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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