Are you planning to set up an e-commerce site with WordPress, or sell goods to an international customer base? If so, then it’s a great idea to think about providing your potential customers with a currency conversion tool.
Currency conversion software tools allow your visitors to have the cost of a foreign currency amount translated into their local currency at the point of sale. It also allows your visitors to view the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their own home currency.
The obvious advantage of adding currency conversion to your site is that it lets customers view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for customers to work out their costs and expenses.
If your site is built with WordPress, it’s quite easy to add currency conversion via a plugin to your web site, allowing your visitors to quickly and easily perform currency conversions to determine the cost of your products.
Currencyr – WordPress Currency Converter
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. It’s also free to install and use on your WP web site.
Some of the many features of this great plugin include the following:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports several exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Can be integrated with a number of e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically detects local currency
- Full translation support
Note: This plugin requires your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP on your server. Alternatively, ask your webhosting support team to check and upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WordPress admin area by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking the “Install” button …
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your WP administration navigation menu …
The plugin settings section offers you several configuration settings …
For example, you can select your base currency from the Base Currency drop-down menu. The default option is ’United States Dollar’ …
You can also choose a data provider from a dropdown menu. The default option is Yahoo Finance, but you can also select one of the other options, such as European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose ‘Open Exchange Rates’, you will need to obtain an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can select how frequently you would like the exchange rates to update by choosing an option from the Update Rates drop-down menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which is an open-source library of Javascript code that lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (like WP plugins).
If you have no reason to modify the jQuery settings, just ignore this setting …
Configure the remainder of the plugin settings and click the Save Changes button when finished …
After you have finished configuring your settings, you can easily start adding currency conversion to any WP page or post using a shortcode.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, ZAR, etc …) with the Currencyr plugin.
How To Use 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 your WP pages and posts:
Let’s say that you retail goods for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to show the price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your page.
To do this, you simply need to add the following shortcode to your page content …
Note: You can also display prices in dollars and cents (e.g. 16.95, 22.00, 149.00, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode should look once you have added it to a page or post …
When your post has been published, your currency conversion will then appear like this …
Using the above example, let’s also translate the same price into different currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
The screenshot below now shows how the shortcode looks when added to a post …
Once the post has been published, the currency conversion will then display like this …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol with this plugin.
Now, let’s say that you would like to select a different base currency than the one selected as the default.
For example, if you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your website targeted to visitors in countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The screenshot below now shows how the above shortcode looks when you add it to a page …
Once the post or page has been published, the currency conversion will then appear like this …
Currencyr Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your website or blog’s sidebar area using the Currencyr widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar area, select Appearance > Widgets in your WP dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to the Active Widgets area …
Configure the widget options as shown below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click ‘Save’ to update your settings …
The currency conversion tool will now appear on the sidebar with the settings you have selected …
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 multiple currencies.
You can change the 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 update your plugin settings …
Your site visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
e-Commerce Software Integration
As mentioned earlier, the Currencyr plugin can be integrated with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, Shopp and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: Currencyr plugin website)
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add currency conversion to your e-commerce site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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