Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce site or selling goods globally? If so, then here’s a good idea: consider providing your potential customers with the convenience of currency conversion on your e-commerce web site.
Currency conversion lets your web visitors translate international currency pricing to their home currency at the point of sale. It also lets your visitors and customers view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their own local currency.
One great advantage of adding currency conversion is that it allows visitors to view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own local currency, making it it easier for purchasers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, you can add a currency conversion plugin to currency conversion to your website using a plugin, allowing your prospective customers to quickly and easily work out the cost of your goods.
WP Currency Converter – Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique converter tooltip. And, it’s also free to install and use on your site.
The Currencyr plugin includes many features such as:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, such as Google and Open Exchange Rates
- Supports Shortcodes
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with a number of online shopping plugins like WooCommerce & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically determines local currency
- Full language translation support
Note: This plugin requires PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP. Ask your web host to upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WordPress admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins section and clicking “Install Now” …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can get to the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your WP admin navigation menu …
The plugin settings area provides a number of configuration settings …
For example, you can select your base currency from the Base Currency drop-down menu if you want a different currency than the default option ’United States Dollar’ …
You can also select which data provider you want to use from the drop-down menu in the ‘Provider’ section. The default selection is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can also choose one of the other options, like European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) will be required …
You can specify how frequently you would like to update the currency exchange rates by specifying an option from the ‘Update Rates’ dropdown menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WordPress plugins).
Unless you have a reason to change the jQuery settings, leave these as they are …
Edit the remainder of the settings and click the ‘Save Changes’ button when you have finished configuring all the settings on this page …
After you have configured your settings, you can easily start adding currency conversion to WP pages using a shortcode.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, ZAR, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into posts, pages and widgets without editing your web templates using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WP pages and posts:
Let’s say that you retail your products online for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would like to show this price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
To display this information, just insert the shortcode below to your post or page …
Note: You can also display amounts in dollars and cents (e.g. 175.00, 29.95, 129.10, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode looks after being added to a page or post …
Once your page has been published, the converted currency amount will then display like this …
Using the above example, let’s now display the same amount into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode appears when added to a post …
Once the information has been published, the currency conversion will then display as shown in the example below …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol in this plugin.
Now, suppose you would like to use a different base currency than the one selected as the default.
For example, say you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your e-commerce pages targeted to non-European visitors (like Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the above shortcode looks when inserted into a page …
After publishing your content, your converted currency will then appear like this …
How To Use The Plugin Widget
You can also add a currency converter to your website or blog’s sidebar menu using the plugin’s widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets from the WordPress dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to the Active Widgets area …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the screenshot below (add any currency codes you would like to display on your widget separated by a comma), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
The currency converter tool will now display on your website’s sidebar with the options you have specified …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful information about using the plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin allows you to specify the symbol to display as the currency separator when using several currencies.
You can select a different symbol in the Multiple Separator settings section.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by a forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you change this symbol and resave your settings …
Your web visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
Integration With WordPress e-Commerce Software
As described earlier, the plugin can be integrated with various WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Shopp …
(image sourced from Currencyr 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:
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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)