Do you plan to set up a WordPress-based e-commerce site, or sell goods internationally? If so, you should probably think about providing your prospects with a currency conversion feature.
Currency conversion tools allow your prospects to translate foreign currency transactions to their home currency when purchasing or checking out products on e-commerce sites. It also allows your visitors and customers to view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their local currency.
One benefit of adding currency conversion to your site is that it lets visitors view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for visitors to calculate their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, it’s quite easy to add a currency converter to currency conversion to your WordPress website via a plugin, allowing your visitors to quickly and easily understand the cost of your products.
Currencyr – Currency Converting Plugin For WordPress
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free to install and use on your WordPress website.
The Currencyr plugin includes many practical features like:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports several exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Can be integrated with various e-store plugins like WooCommerce, Shop and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency determination
- Translation support
Important: The Currencyr plugin needs 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 hosting support team to update your PHP.
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You can install the plugin from your WP admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins section and clicking the “Install Now” button …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your dashboard menu …
The plugin settings section provides various configuration settings …
For example, you can choose a base currency from the Base Currency dropdown menu if you prefer 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 option is Yahoo Finance, but you can also choose 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 specify how often you want to update the currency exchange rates by selecting an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which is an open-source library of Javascript code that lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to modify the jQuery settings, simply ignore this option …
Edit the rest of the plugin settings according to your own needs and don’t forget to click Save Changes when finished …
When your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily add currency conversion to any of your WordPress site’s pages or posts using shortcodes.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, ZAR, etc …) with this plugin.
Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to WordPress posts, pages and widgets with no technical knowledge or skills using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to your WP posts and pages:
Let’s say that you are selling an item on your website for a set amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show the conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your product information page.
To do this, you will need to add the following shortcode into your page content …
Note: You can also add pricing in dollars and cents (for example, 89.95, 79.45, 2499.99, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how your shortcode will look when added to your post …
After publishing your page or post, your converted currency amount will display as you can see below …
Using the same example, let’s now convert the same price into multiple currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode appears when inserted into a post …
Once your post has been published, the currency conversion will then display like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol in this plugin.
Now, let’s say that you want to specify a different base currency than the one selected as your default.
For example, if you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your e-commerce pages targeted to customers in countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
Here’s how the above shortcode appears when inserted into a page …
Once your post or page has been published, the converted currency amounts will then appear as you can see in the example below …
How To Use The Currencyr Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your website or blog’s sidebar menu using the plugin’s widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar area, select Appearance > Widgets from your WordPress user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to an Active Widgets area …
Configure the widget settings as shown below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click Save to save your settings …
The currency conversion tool will now appear on your sidebar menu with the options you have selected …
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 the symbol 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, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by the forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you change this symbol and resave your settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
WordPress E-Commerce
As described earlier, the Currencyr plugin can be integrated with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: Currencyr plugin website)
And there you have it! Now you can go and easily add currency conversion to your WordPress web site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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