Do you plan to set up an e-commerce website using WordPress, or sell any products globally? If so, then you may want to consider providing your prospects with currency conversion.
Currency conversion allows your visitors to have the cost of an international currency amount converted into their local currency at the point of sale. It also allows visitors to see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their local currency.
The obvious advantage of adding currency conversion to your website is that it lets your customers view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for customers to calculate their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, it’s simple to add a currency converter to your WP website, allowing your customers to quickly and easily work out the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – Currency Converting Tool For WordPress
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a visually attractive converter tooltip. It’s also free!
The Currencyr currency conversion plugin includes advanced features like the following:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports various exchange rates providers, such as Google, Open Exchange Rates & European Central Bank
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with various e-store plugins such as WP-eCommerce & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency detection
- Full language translation support
Important: The Currencyr plugin needs PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed. Alternatively, ask your web host to update your PHP server installation.
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You can install the plugin from your WordPress admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins section and clicking the ”Install Now” button …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can access the plugin’s settings page by choosing Currencyr from your administration navigation menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings page …
For example, you can choose a base currency from a dropdown menu if you prefer to use a different currency than the default option ‘United States Dollar – (USD)’ …
You can also specify a data provider from a drop-down menu. The default option is Yahoo Finance, but you can also choose one of the other options, like European Central Bank or Google Finance …
Note: If you select ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) is required …
You can choose how often you want to update the exchange rates by selecting an option from the Update Rates dropdown menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (e.g. WordPress plugins).
Unless there is a reason to modify the jQuery settings, simply ignore this option …
Edit the rest of the plugin settings and don’t forget to click the Save Changes button when finished …
After you have configured your settings, you can easily add currency conversion to your WP posts and pages using shortcodes and widgets.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, CAD, etc …) in this plugin.
How To Use Plugin Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into posts, pages and widgets with no web coding skills or knowledge using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at 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 want to display your price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your product information page.
All you need to do is add the following shortcode into your post or page …
Note: You can also insert pricing in dollars and cents (e.g. 6.95, 97.00, 399.99, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how your shortcode will look when inserting it into your product page …
After your page or post has been published, your currency conversion will appear like this …
Using the above example, let’s now display the same amount into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode appears when added to a post …
After publishing the page, your currency conversion will then appear as you can see in the example below …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol with the Currencyr plugin.
Now, suppose you would like to use a different base currency than the one set as the default.
For example, say you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your e-commerce pages targeted to customers from countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The example below shows how the above shortcode looks when you add it to a post …
After publishing the page or post, the converted currency amounts will then display like this …
Using The Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your website or blog’s sidebar menu using the Currencyr widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets from the WP dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to an ‘Active Widgets’ area …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the screenshot below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click Save to update your settings …
Your currency converter will now display on the 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 lets you 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 currency amounts with the forward slash as shown below …
If you modify the symbol and resave your plugin settings …
Your site visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
WP E-Commerce
As described earlier, the plugin integrates with various WP-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: plugin site)
And there you have it! Now you know how to easily add a currency converter to your WordPress site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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