Do you plan to set up an e-commerce site using WordPress, or sell any products online? If so, you should consider providing users with the convenience of currency conversion on your e-commerce site.
Currency conversion tools allow your visitors to have the price of a foreign currency amount translated to their home currency at the point of sale. It also allows visitors and customers to view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their local currency.
One great advantage of providing currency conversion is that it lets customers see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, making it it easier for purchasers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, it’s easy and simple to add currency conversion via a plugin to currency conversion to your WordPress website or blog via a plugin, allowing your site visitors to quickly and easily understand the cost of your products.
Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a visually attractive converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free!
The Currencyr useful plugin features:
- In-line conversion tool
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates and European Central Bank
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with various e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can detect local currency automatically
- Supports full translations
Note: 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. Ask your web host to check and upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WordPress admin area by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking “Install Now” …
When the plugin has been installed and activated, you can visit the plugin’s settings section by selecting Currencyr from your WordPress administration area …
The plugin settings section provides several configuration options …
For example, you can choose a base currency from a drop-down menu if you want a different currency than the default option ‘USD’ …
Similarly, you can choose any supported data provider from the dropdown menu in the ‘Provider’ section. The default selection is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can select another provider, like European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can choose how often you want the exchange rates to be updated by specifying an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WP plugins).
If you have no reason to edit the jQuery settings, leave these as they are …
Edit the rest of the settings to suit your own preferences and remember to click ‘Save Changes’ when done …
After you have finished configuring your settings, you can easily start adding currency conversion to any WordPress page using shortcodes and widgets.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, CAD, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
How To Use Plugin Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to WP posts, pages and widgets without having to edit your web templates using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WordPress posts and pages:
Let’s say that you sell your product on your website for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would like to display your price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your product information page.
All you need to do is insert the shortcode below into your page content …
Note: You can also insert amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 175.00, 22.00, 149.00, etc …)
The example below shows how the above shortcode will look when added to the page …
When the post has been published, your currency conversion will then appear like this …
Using the above example, let’s also display the same amount into different 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 appears when added to your content …
After publishing the content, your currency conversion will then appear like this …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol in the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you want to specify a different base currency than the one selected as your default.
For example, if you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your website targeted to non-European customers (like Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The screenshot below shows how the above shortcode appears when you add it to your content …
Once your content has been published, the currency conversion will then display as seen below …
How To Use The Currencyr Widget
You can also add a currency converter to your site’s sidebar using the plugin’s widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets in your WP dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to an Active Widgets location …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the screenshot below (add the currency codes you would like displaying on your widget separated by a comma), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
The currency converter tool will now show on your site’s sidebar menu with the options you have selected …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the Currencyr plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin allows you to specify a symbol of your choice 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, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency values with a forward slash as you can see in the example below …
If you specify another symbol and update your plugin settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
Using The Plugin With WP-Compatible e-Commerce Software
As mentioned earlier, the plugin integrates with a number of WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WP-eCommerce and Shopp …
(above image sourced from Currencyr plugin website)
Congratulations! Now you can go and easily add a currency converter to your e-commerce website.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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