Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce site or selling goods worldwide? If so, you may want to think about providing your potential customers with currency conversion.
Currency converting software tools let your site visitors have the price of a foreign currency amount converted into their local currency at the purchase or checkout stage. It also lets your visitors and customers view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their own local currency.
One great benefit of adding currency conversion is that it allows visitors to see and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for purchasers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is built with WordPress, you can add currency conversion using a plugin to WordPress, allowing your customers to quickly and easily understand the cost of your products.
Currencyr
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a unique converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free!
Plugin features include the following:
- In-line converter
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Supports integration with a number of e-store plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency detection
- Translation support
Important: The Currencyr plugin needs PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed on your server. Ask your web hosting support team to upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the plugin from your WP admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins area and clicking the “Install Now” button …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can access the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your admin user navigation menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings screen …
For example, you can select your base currency from the ‘Base Currency’ dropdown menu. The default base currency is ‘United States Dollar – (USD)’ …
Similarly, you can select any supported data provider from a drop-down menu. The default provider is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can select another option, like FoxRate or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose Open Exchange Rates as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) will be required …
You can specify how frequently you would like to update the currency exchange rates by selecting an option from the Update Rates drop-down menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (like WordPress plugins).
Unless there is a reason to modify the jQuery settings, leave these as they are …
Configure the remainder of the settings according to your own preferences and click Save Changes when you have configured this screen …
Once your plugin settings have been configured, you can start adding currency conversion to any WordPress post using shortcodes.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the end of this tutorial to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, ZAR, etc …) with this plugin.
Using Currencyr Shortcodes
You can easily 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 WordPress pages and posts:
Let’s say that you are selling goods on your website for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show this price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your product sales page.
All you need to do is add the shortcode below to your page content …
Note: You can also insert pricing in dollars and cents (for example, 19.95, 189.00, 400.00, etc …)
The example below shows how the shortcode looks after being added to a page or post …
After the information has been published, the currency conversion will appear as you can see in the example below …
Using this example, let’s also translate the same amount into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
The example below now shows how the shortcode looks when you add it to a page …
After publishing your post, your converted currency amounts will then appear as shown below …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the end of this tutorial to learn how to change the currency separator symbol in the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you want to use 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 non-European customers (like Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the above shortcode appears when inserted into your content …
Once the page or post has been published, the converted currency will then display as you can see in the screenshot below …
Currencyr Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your website or blog’s sidebar section using the Currencyr widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets in your WP admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to an Active Widgets area …
Configure the widget settings as shown below (add any currency codes you would like to display on your widget separated by a comma), and click Save to update your settings …
Your currency converter tool will now display on your site’s sidebar with the options you have selected …
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 select a different symbol in the Multiple Separator settings section.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency amounts with a forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you enter another symbol and update your plugin settings …
Your site visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Software Integration
As mentioned earlier, the Currencyr plugin can be integrated with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: plugin site)
And there you have it! 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:
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