Do you plan to sell your products online globally? If so, you should consider providing users with the convenience of currency conversion on your website.
Currency converting tools allow your site visitors to have the cost of a foreign currency transaction converted into their home currency when checking out products on e-commerce sites. It also allows visitors to view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their own local currency.
One great advantage of displaying currency conversion is that it lets customers see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for visitors to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is powered by WordPress, you can add a currency converter to WordPress, allowing your visitors to quickly and easily work out the cost of your products.
Currencyr
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. It’s also free!
Some of the features of this plugin include the following:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, like Google and FoxRates
- Supports Shortcodes
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with a number of online shopping plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency determination
- Supports full translations
Important: This plugin needs your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed. Ask your webhosting support team to update 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 the “Install” button …
When you have installed and activated the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your administration navigation menu …
The plugin settings section offers you several configuration options …
For example, you can choose a base currency from a dropdown menu if you want a different currency than the default option ‘USD’ …
Similarly, you can specify a data provider from a dropdown menu. The default selection is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can also choose another provider, such as European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select ‘Open Exchange Rates’, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can specify how frequently you would like the exchange rates to update by specifying an option from the ‘Update Rates’ dropdown 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 (like WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to change the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Edit the rest of the plugin settings and remember to click ‘Save Changes’ when you have configured this screen …
After you have configured your plugin settings, you can add currency conversion to your WordPress blog’s posts using shortcodes and widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, ZAR, etc …) with the Currencyr plugin.
Currencyr Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into WP pages, posts and widgets without having to edit 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 set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to display your conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your page.
To do this, just insert the following shortcode to your page content …
Note: You can also insert prices in dollars and cents (for example, 188.35, 22.00, 149.00, etc …)
The example below shows how your shortcode looks after being added to a product page …
After publishing your page or post, your currency conversion will then appear like this …
Using the above example, let’s also display the same price into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode appears when added to a post …
Once the content has been published, the currency conversion will then appear as you can see in the screenshot below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol in this plugin.
Now, suppose you would like to use a different base currency than the one selected as your default.
For example, if you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to non-European visitors (like Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the above shortcode appears when you add it to a post …
Once your information has been published, your converted currency amounts will then appear like this …
Plugin Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your site’s sidebar using a widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets from your WordPress user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to an Active Widgets location …
Configure the widget settings as shown below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click ‘Save’ to update your settings …
The currency converter tool will now display on your site’s sidebar with the settings 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 a symbol of your choice 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 you can see in the example below …
If you modify the symbol and resave your settings …
Your website visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
Integration With e-Commerce Software
As stated earlier, the plugin can be integrated with a number of WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Shopp …
(image sourced from Currencyr plugin site)
And there you have it! Now you know how to easily add currency conversion to your e-commerce web site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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