Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce website or selling goods to an international audience? If so, then you may want to consider providing users with a currency conversion service.
Currency conversion tools allow your customers to have the cost of an international currency transaction translated to their local currency at the point of sale. It also lets your visitors and customers view the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their own home currency.
The obvious benefit of adding currency conversion is that it lets visitors see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, making it it easier for purchasers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is built with WordPress, you can add currency conversion via a plugin to currency conversion to WordPress via a plugin, allowing your customers to quickly and easily understand the cost of your products.
Currencyr – Free Currency Converter For WordPress
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, 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 web site.
The Currencyr plugin features:
- In-line converter
- Supports various exchange rates providers, such as Google, 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-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency determination
- Supports full translations
Important: This plugin requires your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP. Alternatively, ask your webhosting company to update your PHP.
***
You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WP admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins area and clicking “Install Now” …
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your admin user menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings page …
For example, you can select your base currency from the Base Currency drop-down menu. The default option is ’USD’ …
You can also specify any supported data provider from the dropdown menu in the ‘Provider’ section. The default option 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’ as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) is required …
You can select how often you want to update the currency exchange rates by selecting 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 WordPress plugins).
Unless there is a reason to edit the jQuery settings, just ignore this option …
Edit the rest of the settings according to your own preferences and don’t forget to click Save Changes when you have finished configuring this section …
Once your plugin settings have been configured, 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 more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, JPY, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
How To Use Plugin Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to pages, posts and widgets with no web coding knowledge 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 a product for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show your conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your product information page.
To do this, you will need to insert the following shortcode to your page content …
Note: You can also display prices in dollars and cents (e.g. 16.95, 189.00, 544.97, etc …)
The example below shows how the shortcode should look after being added to a product page …
After publishing your page, your currency conversion will appear as you can see in the screenshot below …
Using the same example, let’s also translate the same amount into different currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode looks when added to a post …
After publishing the post or page, the currency conversion will then appear as you can see in the screenshot below …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol with the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s say that you want to select a different base currency than the one you have set as your default.
For example, if you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your website targeted to non-European customers (e.g. Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the shortcode appears when inserted into a page …
After publishing the post or page, your currency conversion will then display like this …
Plugin Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your website or blog’s sidebar menu using the Currencyr widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar menu, select Appearance > Widgets in the WP user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to the Active Widgets location …
Configure the widget options as shown in the example below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
The currency converter will now show on the sidebar menu with the options you have specified …
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 field.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your prices using a forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you change this symbol and update your settings …
Your website visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
WP E-Commerce
As stated earlier, the Currencyr plugin integrates with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: Currencyr plugin site)
Congratulations! Now you can go and easily add currency conversion to your e-commerce 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