Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce site or making goods or services available for sale globally? If so, then it’s a good idea to consider providing your potential customers with currency conversion.
Currency conversion software lets your prospects have the price of a foreign currency amount translated to their local currency at the purchase or checkout phase. It also lets your visitors see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their local currency.
One benefit of adding currency conversion is that it allows visitors to view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, making it it easier for customers to work out their costs and expenses.
If your site is built using WordPress, it’s simple to add a currency conversion plugin to WordPress, allowing your prospective customers to quickly perform currency conversions to determine the cost of your goods.
Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. It’s also free!
Some of the many useful features of this great plugin include:
- In-line converter
- Supports several exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Supports integration with various e-store plugins like WooCommerce, Shop & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can detect local currency automatically
- Translation support
Note: This plugin needs PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP on your server. Alternatively, ask your web host to update your PHP.
***
You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WP admin area by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking the ”Install Now” button …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can get to the plugin’s settings page by selecting Currencyr from your admin user menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings area …
For example, you can choose a base currency from a dropdown menu. The default currency is ‘United States Dollar – (USD)’ …
Similarly, you can specify any supported data provider from the dropdown menu in the Provider section. The default option is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can select one of the other options, such as European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) is required …
You can select how frequently you want the currency exchange rates to update by choosing an option from the ‘Update Rates’ dropdown menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which is an open-source library of Javascript code that 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 according to your needs and remember to click Save Changes when finished …
Once your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily add currency conversion to any WP page using a shortcode.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, ZAR, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
Plugin Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into WordPress pages, posts and widgets without editing your web templates 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 an item for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show your price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your product sales page.
All you need to do is add the shortcode below into your post or page …
Note: You can also add amounts in dollars and cents (e.g. 165.49, 22.00, 129.10, etc …)
The example below shows how the shortcode should look after being added to your page or post …
After publishing the page, your converted currency will then display like this …
Using this example, let’s also translate the same price into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (you can add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
The example below shows how the above shortcode appears when added to a post …
After publishing the page or post, the currency conversion will then display as seen in the screenshot below …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the end of this tutorial to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol in the Currencyr plugin.
Now, suppose you would like to select 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 website targeted to non-European visitors (e.g. Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the above shortcode looks when inserted into a post …
After publishing the post, your converted currency amounts will then display as shown below …
Currencyr Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your site’s sidebar menu using the Currencyr widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets in your WordPress admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to an Active Widgets area …
Configure the widget options as shown in the screenshot below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click Save to save your settings …
Your currency converter will now display on your website’s sidebar menu with the settings you have specified when configuring the widget …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin allows you to specify the symbol to display as the currency separator when using several currencies.
You can change the symbol in the Multiple Separator settings field.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by the forward slash as you can see in the example below …
If you select another symbol and resave your settings …
Your website visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Platform Integration
As described earlier, the Currencyr plugin can be integrated with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image sourced from plugin website)
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:
***
"I was absolutely amazed at the scope and breadth of these tutorials! The most in-depth training I have ever received on any subject!" - Myke O'Neill, DailyGreenPost.com