Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce web site or selling products online? If so, then it’s a great idea to think about providing users with the convenience of currency conversion on your website.
Currency conversion allows your customers to have the price of a foreign currency amount translated to their home currency when purchasing products online. It also lets visitors view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their own home currency.
One great advantage of displaying currency conversion is that it allows customers to see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for customers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, you can add currency conversion via a plugin to currency conversion to your website or blog using a plugin, allowing your site visitors to easily understand the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – Currency Converter 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!
Some of the features of this great plugin include:
- In-line conversion tool
- Supports several exchange rates providers, such as Google, Open Exchange Rates and European Central Bank
- Supports Shortcodes
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Supports integration with various e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, Shop and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can determine local currency automatically
- Support for language translations
Important: The Currencyr plugin requires your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed on your server. Alternatively, ask your webhosting support team to update your PHP.
***
You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins screen and clicking “Install Now” …
When you have installed and activated the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your WordPress dashboard menu …
The plugin settings area offers you various configuration settings …
For example, you can choose a base currency from a dropdown menu if you prefer to use something other than the default option (USD) …
You can also select a data provider from the dropdown menu in the Provider section. The default option is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can choose another provider, such as European Central Bank or Google Finance …
Note: If you select Open Exchange Rates, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can specify how often you want the exchange rates to be updated by selecting an option from the Update Rates dropdown menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (like WP plugins).
If you have no reason to modify the jQuery settings, simply ignore this section …
Configure the rest of the plugin settings to suit your own preferences and remember to click Save Changes when you have finished configuring all of your options …
When your plugin settings have been configured, you can add currency conversion to any WP post using widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, JPY, etc …) with this plugin.
Plugin Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to WP pages, posts and widgets without touching your web templates using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to your WordPress pages and posts:
Let’s say that you are selling goods online for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show your conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your page.
All you need to do is add the following shortcode into your post or page …
Note: You can also display amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 19.95, 47.00, 2499.99, etc …)
The example below shows how the above shortcode will look after you have added it to a page …
After your page or post has been published, your currency conversion will then display like this …
Using this example, let’s now display the same amount into multiple currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode appears when you add it to a post …
Once your content has been published, the currency conversion will then appear as you can see in the example below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol in this plugin.
Now, suppose you want to use a different base currency than the one you have selected as your 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 (e.g. Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The screenshot below now shows how the above shortcode looks when added to your content …
After publishing your content, the converted currency will then appear like this …
Plugin Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your website’s sidebar using the Currencyr widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets from your WP user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to the Active Widgets location …
Configure the widget options as shown in the example below (add any currency codes you would like to display on your widget separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to update your settings …
The currency conversion tool will now display on your site’s sidebar with the settings you have specified when configuring the widget …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the Currencyr plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you 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, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency amounts using a forward slash as shown below …
If you change this symbol and resave your plugin settings …
Your web visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Software Integration
As described earlier, the Currencyr plugin integrates with various WP-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: Currencyr plugin site)
And there you have it! Now you know how to easily add currency conversion to your e-commerce web 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