Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce site or selling goods worldwide? If so, then it’s a great idea to think about providing users with the convenience of currency conversion on your site.
Currency converting software tools allow your prospective customers to convert foreign currency prices into their home currency when purchasing products on e-commerce sites. It also lets visitors and customers view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their own home currency.
One great advantage of adding currency conversion to your website is that it lets visitors see and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own local currency, making it it easier for customers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is powered by WordPress, it’s quite simple to add currency conversion via a plugin to currency conversion to WordPress using a plugin, allowing your site visitors to quickly calculate the cost of your goods.
Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a unique converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free to install and use on your WordPress web site.
Some of the many features of this plugin include the following:
- In-line converter
- Supports various exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates and European Central Bank
- Supports Shortcodes
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with various e-store plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency determination
- Supports full language translations
Important: The Currencyr plugin needs your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed. Alternatively, ask your webhosting support team to update your PHP.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WordPress dashboard by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking “Install Now” …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your administration area …
The plugin settings page offers you several configuration settings …
For example, you can select a base currency from a dropdown menu if you prefer to use something other than the default option ’United States Dollar’ …
Similarly, you can select any supported data provider from a drop-down 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 as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) will be required …
You can choose how often you would like the exchange rates to be updated by specifying 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 (e.g. WP plugins).
If you have no reason to modify the jQuery settings, simply ignore this setting …
Configure the remainder of the settings according to your own preferences and remember to click ‘Save Changes’ when you have finished configuring all the settings on this screen …
After your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily start adding currency conversion to WordPress site’s posts using shortcodes.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the end of this tutorial to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, JPY, etc …) with the Currencyr plugin.
Currencyr Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into WordPress pages, posts and widgets without having to edit code using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to pages and posts:
Let’s say that you retail an item online for a set amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show this price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
To display this information, just add the following shortcode to your page content …
Note: You can also insert pricing in dollars and cents (e.g. 165.49, 47.00, 129.10, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode looks after being inserted into a post or page …
After the post or page has been published, the converted currency will display like this …
Using the same example, let’s now translate the same amount into multiple currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode below (add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode looks when inserted into your content …
After publishing your content, the currency conversion will then display as shown in the screenshot below …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the end of this tutorial to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol within this plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you would like to select a different base currency than the one set as the default.
For example, if you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your website targeted to customers in countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The example below now shows how the shortcode looks when added to a post …
After publishing your information, the currency conversion will then appear as you can see below …
Using The Currencyr Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your website or blog’s sidebar using the plugin’s widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets from your WordPress admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area 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 …
Your currency conversion tool will now show on your site’s 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 several 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 values with a forward slash as you can see in the example below …
If you change this symbol and resave your settings …
Your site visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
Using The Currencyr Plugin With WP-Compatible e-Commerce Software
As mentioned earlier, the plugin can be integrated with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: plugin site)
Congratulations! Now you can go and easily add a currency converter to your e-commerce site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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