Are you planning to set up an e-commerce website with WordPress, or sell products online? If so, then you should think about providing users with the convenience of currency conversion on your e-commerce website.
Currency conversion allows your site visitors to translate foreign currency pricing into their home currency when purchasing products online. It also lets customers see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their home currency.
The obvious advantage of adding currency conversion is that it allows your customers to view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own home currency, making it it easier for customers to work out their costs and expenses.
If your site is built with WordPress, it’s quite easy to add a currency conversion plugin to your WordPress site, allowing your prospective customers to easily calculate the cost of your goods.
Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a unique and attractive converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free!
The Currencyr useful WordPress plugin includes features like:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, like Google, Open Exchange Rates & FoxRates
- Supports Shortcodes
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with a number of e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency determination
- Translation support
Important: This plugin needs PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP. Alternatively, ask your web hosting support team to upgrade your PHP server installation.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WordPress dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins area and clicking the ”Install Now” button …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your WordPress admin user menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings screen …
For example, you can select your base currency from a drop-down menu. The default currency is ’US Dollar’ …
You can choose which data provider you want to use from a drop-down menu. The default provider is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can select another option, like European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose Open Exchange Rates, you will need to enter an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can specify how frequently you would like the exchange rates to update by choosing an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (e.g. WP plugins).
If you have no reason to change the jQuery settings, leave these as they are …
Configure the rest of the plugin settings and click ‘Save Changes’ when finished …
Once you have configured your settings, you can easily add currency conversion to any WordPress post using shortcodes and widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, JPY, etc …) in this plugin.
Currencyr Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to WP pages, posts and widgets with no coding knowledge using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WP posts and pages:
Let’s say that you are selling an item on your website for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to display this amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
To do this, just add the shortcode below to your page content …
Note: You can also add amounts in dollars and cents (e.g. 19.95, 29.95, 2499.99, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how your shortcode looks when added to your product page …
Once your post or page has been published, the converted currency will display like this …
Using this example, let’s also translate the same amount into multiple currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode below (you can add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode looks when you add it to a page …
After publishing the information, your currency conversion will then display like this …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol with this plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you want to select a different base currency than the one set as the default.
For example, if you have set 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 …
Here’s how the above shortcode appears when added to your content …
After publishing the post or page, the converted currency will then display as you can see below …
Using The Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your site’s sidebar section using a widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar area, select Appearance > Widgets from the WP admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to the Active Widgets location …
Configure the widget options as shown in the screenshot below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click Save to save your settings …
The currency converter tool will now show on your site’s sidebar menu 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, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by a forward slash as you can see in the example below …
If you enter another symbol and resave your plugin settings …
Your site visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
Integration With WordPress e-Commerce Platforms
As described earlier, the plugin integrates with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Shopp …
(image sourced from Currencyr plugin site)
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add currency conversion to your e-commerce website.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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