Are you planning to set up a WordPress-based e-commerce site, or sell goods or services worldwide? If so, then you should consider providing users with currency conversion.
Currency conversion allows your prospects to translate international currency prices to their home currency at the purchase or checkout stage. It also allows your visitors and customers to view the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their own local currency.
The obvious advantage of putting currency conversion is that it allows your customers to view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for visitors to calculate their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, it’s quite simple to add a currency conversion plugin to currency conversion to WordPress using a plugin, allowing your site visitors to easily determine the cost of your goods.
WP Currency Converter – Currencyr
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a visually attractive converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free to install and use on your site.
The Currencyr useful WP plugin includes many features like:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports several exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Google & FoxRates
- Supports Shortcodes
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with various e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically determines local currency
- Support for language translations
Note: The Currencyr plugin needs PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed on your server. Alternatively, ask your web host to update your PHP.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WP dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins area and clicking “Install Now” …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your dashboard navigation menu …
The plugin settings page provides various configuration settings …
For example, you can choose a base currency from the ‘Base Currency’ drop-down menu if you prefer a different currency than the default option ’US Dollar’ …
Similarly, you can specify a data provider from a drop-down menu. The default option is Yahoo Finance, but you can also choose another provider, like FoxRate or Google Finance …
Note: If you select ‘Open Exchange Rates’, an API (Application Programming Interface) will be required …
You can select how frequently you would like to update the currency exchange rates by selecting 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 edit the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Edit the remainder of the plugin settings to suit your preferences and click Save Changes when finished …
After your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily start adding currency conversion to your WordPress pages and posts using widgets.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, ZAR, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
Using Plugin Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into WordPress pages, posts and widgets without editing 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 retail goods on your website for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to display the conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
All you need to do is insert the following shortcode to your post or page …
Note: You can also add amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 16.95, 47.00, 399.99, etc …)
The example below shows how the above shortcode will look after you have inserted it into a post or page …
After publishing the information, your converted currency amount will appear like this …
Using the above example, let’s now convert the same amount into different currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
The example below now shows how the above shortcode looks when added to a post …
Once your page has been published, the currency conversion will then appear like this …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol within this plugin.
Now, let’s say that you want to specify a different base currency than the one you have set as the default.
For example, if you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to customers in countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the shortcode appears when added to your content …
Once your post has been published, your currency conversion will then display like this …
Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your site’s sidebar using the Currencyr widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets from the WordPress user 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 below (add any currency codes you want to display on your widget separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to update your settings …
The currency converter will now display on your sidebar with the options 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 several 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 values with the forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you modify the symbol and resave your settings …
Your web visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
Integration With WP e-Commerce Platforms
As stated earlier, the Currencyr plugin can be integrated with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: Currencyr plugin website)
And there you have it! Now you can go and easily add currency conversion to your e-commerce site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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