Do you plan to set up an e-commerce site with WordPress, or sell your products online? If so, then it’s a great idea to consider providing your potential customers with the convenience of currency conversion on your e-commerce website.
Currency converting software tools allow your visitors to have the price of a foreign currency amount converted into their local currency at the buying or checkout phase. It also allows visitors to see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their own home currency.
The obvious advantage of putting currency conversion is that it allows your customers to view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, making it it easier for visitors to work out their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, you can add currency conversion using a plugin to your WordPress website or blog, allowing your site visitors to quickly determine the cost of your products.
Currencyr
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique and attractive converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free to install and use on your website or blog.
Some of the many useful features of this great plugin include:
- Inline converter
- Supports various exchange rates providers, like Google, Open Exchange Rates and FoxRates
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with a number of e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, Shop & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can determine local currency automatically
- Full support for language translations
Note: 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 on your server. Alternatively, ask your webhosting support team to upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WP dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins area and clicking “Install Now” …
After you have installed and activated the plugin, you can get to the plugin’s settings area by selecting Currencyr from your admin user menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings area …
For example, you can choose your base currency from a dropdown menu if you want a different currency than the default option ’USD’ …
You can choose which data provider you want to use from the dropdown menu in the ‘Provider’ section. The default option is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can also select another provider, such as European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) will be required …
You can specify how often you want to update the exchange rates by choosing an option from the Update Rates dropdown menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which is an open-source library of Javascript code that allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to edit the jQuery settings, just ignore this setting …
Configure the rest of the plugin settings according to your needs and don’t forget to click ‘Save Changes’ when done …
When you have configured your settings, you can start adding currency conversion to any WP page using shortcodes and widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, CAD, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
Plugin Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into posts, pages and widgets with no programming knowledge using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WordPress pages and posts:
Let’s say that you are selling a product on your website for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show the amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your page.
All you need to do is insert the following shortcode into your page content …
Note: You can also add pricing in dollars and cents (e.g. 165.49, 22.00, 400.00, etc …)
The example below shows how your shortcode looks after being inserted into your page …
When the page or post has been published, your currency conversion will then appear as you can see in the screenshot below …
Using the above example, let’s also display the same price into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (you can add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode looks when you add it to a page …
After publishing your page, your currency conversion will then appear as seen below …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol in the Currencyr plugin.
Now, suppose you want to specify a different base currency than the one selected as the default.
For example, if you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to customers from countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The screenshot below shows how the above shortcode looks when added to a post …
After publishing your post or page, your converted currency amounts will then display like this …
Widget
You can also add a currency converter to your site’s sidebar menu using the Currencyr widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar menu, select Appearance > Widgets in the WP admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to an Active Widgets area …
Configure the widget options as shown below (add the currency codes you would like to display on your widget separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to update your settings …
Your currency converter tool will now display on the sidebar menu with the settings you have specified when configuring the widget …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you 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) …
Separates all your currency amounts with a forward slash as shown below …
If you change this symbol and update your plugin settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Software Integration
As stated earlier, the Currencyr plugin can be integrated with a number of WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image sourced from Currencyr plugin website)
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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