Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce site or selling goods worldwide? If so, then here’s a great idea: consider providing users with currency conversion.
Currency converting tools allow your prospective customers to have the cost of a foreign currency transaction translated into their local currency at the purchase or checkout stage. It also lets visitors view the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their home currency.
One great benefit of providing currency conversion is that it lets customers see and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own home currency, making it it easier for customers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, it’s really easy and simple to add currency conversion using a plugin to your website or blog, allowing your visitors to easily calculate the cost of your goods.
WP Currency Converter – Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a visually attractive converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free to install and use on your WordPress web site.
This plugin features:
- Inline converter
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates & FoxRates
- Supports Shortcodes
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with a number of e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, Shop and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically detects local currency
- Supports full translations
Note: The Currencyr plugin requires PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed. Alternatively, ask your web host to update your PHP.
***
You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WordPress dashboard by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking “Install Now” …
After the plugin has been installed and activated, you can configure the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your WP admin area …
The plugin settings area offers you various configuration options …
For example, you can choose your base currency from a drop-down menu. The default base currency is ’USD’ …
You can also choose which data provider you want to use from a dropdown menu. The default selection is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can also choose one of the other options, such as 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 select how frequently you would like to update the exchange rates by specifying an option from the Update Rates dropdown menu …
The 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 WP plugins).
Unless there is a reason to change the jQuery settings, simply ignore this section …
Edit the remainder of the settings to suit your preferences and don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button when done …
Once you have configured your settings, you can easily start adding currency conversion to any WordPress page using widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, ZAR, etc …) with this plugin.
Using Currencyr Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to posts, pages and widgets without having to mess with code using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to posts and pages:
Let’s say that you are selling goods for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to display this conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
All you need to do is insert the following shortcode into your page content …
Note: You can also insert amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 165.49, 47.00, 1356.87, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how your shortcode will look when inserting it into the product page …
After publishing the post or page, the converted currency amount will appear as seen in the screenshot below …
Using the above example, let’s now translate the same amount into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use the shortcode below (add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode appears when added to your content …
After publishing your page, your converted currency will then display as seen below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol within this plugin.
Now, let’s say that you want to use a different base currency than the one you have set as the default.
For example, say you have set 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 shortcode appears when inserted into a page …
Once the page or post has been published, the currency conversion will then display as shown in the screenshot below …
Using The Plugin Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your website’s sidebar using a widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets in your WordPress admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to an ‘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 conversion tool will now show on your site’s sidebar with the settings you have specified …
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 multiple currencies.
You can select a different symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings section.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by the forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you change the symbol and update your settings …
Your site visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Integration
As stated earlier, the Currencyr plugin integrates with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(above 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:
***
"Your training is the best in the world! It is simple, yet detailed, direct, understandable, memorable, and complete." Andrea Adams, FinancialJourney.org