Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce site or making products available for sale worldwide? If so, then here’s a good idea: consider providing your prospects with the convenience of currency conversion on your e-commerce web site.
Currency conversion software lets your prospects convert international currency pricing to their local currency at the point of sale. It also lets your visitors view the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their own home currency.
One benefit of providing currency conversion on your website is that it allows visitors to view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for purchasers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, you can add a currency conversion plugin to your WP website, allowing your visitors to quickly and easily determine the cost of your products.
Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. It’s also free to install and use on your WordPress web site.
Some of the features of this plugin include the following:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports various exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Google and European Central Bank
- Supports Shortcodes
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with a number of e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can detect local currency automatically
- Full translation support
Important: This 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 host to update your PHP.
***
You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WP admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins screen and clicking “Install Now” …
After you have installed and activated the plugin, you can access the plugin’s settings screen by choosing Currencyr from your admin menu …
The plugin settings section offers you many configuration settings …
For example, you can select your base currency from a dropdown menu if you prefer to use something other than the default option ‘United States Dollar – (USD)’ …
Similarly, you can select which data provider you want to use from the dropdown menu in the Provider section. The default provider is Yahoo Finance, but you can choose another provider, 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 specify how frequently you would like to update the currency exchange rates by specifying an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (e.g. WordPress plugins).
Unless you have a reason to edit the jQuery settings, you can just ignore this section …
Configure the rest of the plugin settings and don’t forget to click ‘Save Changes’ when done …
After you have configured your settings, you can start adding currency conversion to WP site’s posts and pages using widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, ZAR, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
Plugin Shortcodes
You can insert currency conversion into WP pages, posts and widgets without touching code using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to pages and posts:
Let’s say that you are selling goods for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would like to display your conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your page.
To display this information, just insert the following shortcode to your post or page …
Note: You can also add amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 89.95, 22.00, 399.99, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode looks when added to your post or page …
After publishing your post, the converted currency will then display as you can see below …
Using this example, let’s also translate the same amount into different currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode below (you can add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode appears when added to a post …
After publishing the post, your currency conversion will then appear like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol within this plugin.
Now, suppose you would like to select a different base currency than the one set as your default.
For example, if you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your e-commerce pages targeted to non-European customers (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 a page …
Once the content has been published, your converted currency will then appear as you can see below …
How To Use The Plugin Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your site’s sidebar menu using a widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar area, select Appearance > Widgets from your WordPress dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to the ‘Active Widgets’ location …
Configure the widget settings as shown 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 appear on the sidebar menu with the settings you have specified when configuring the widget …
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 multiple currencies.
You can change the symbol in the Multiple Separator settings field.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your prices using a forward slash as shown below …
If you modify the symbol and resave your plugin settings …
Your web visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
e-Commerce Platform Integration
As mentioned earlier, the plugin integrates with a number of WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image sourced from plugin website)
And there you have it! Now you can go and easily add currency conversion to your WordPress site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
***
"Learning WordPress has been a huge stumbling block for me. I've been looking for something that covers absolutely everything but doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Thank you so much ... you have just provided me with what I have been looking for! Truly appreciated!" - Tanya