Are you planning to set up an e-commerce website with WordPress, or sell products worldwide? If so, you may want to consider providing your web visitors with a currency conversion tool.
Currency conversion software tools allow your prospective customers to have the cost of a foreign currency transaction converted to their local currency when checking out products on e-commerce sites. It also allows your visitors and customers to view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their local currency.
One advantage of displaying currency conversion is that it allows customers to see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for customers to calculate their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, you can add a currency conversion plugin to WordPress, allowing your site visitors to quickly and easily understand the cost of your products.
Currencyr
Currencyr is an intuitive, 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 WP site.
Some of the many features of this great plugin include the following:
- Inline converter
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates & FoxRates
- Supports Shortcodes
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Supports integration with a number of online shopping plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency determination
- Supports full translations
Important: The Currencyr plugin requires 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. Alternatively, ask your web host to update your PHP.
***
You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WP admin area by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking the “Install” button …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your admin navigation menu …
The plugin settings section offers you a number of configuration settings …
For example, you can select your base currency from the ‘Base Currency’ dropdown menu if you prefer to use a different currency than the default option (USD) …
Similarly, you can choose any supported data provider from the drop-down menu in the Provider section. The default selection is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can also choose one of the other options, such as FoxRate or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose Open Exchange Rates as your provider, you will need to obtain an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can choose how frequently you would like the currency exchange rates to update by selecting an option from the Update Rates drop-down menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to edit the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Edit the remainder of the settings according to your own needs and click ‘Save Changes’ when finished …
When your plugin settings have been configured, you can add currency conversion to any WordPress page or post using a shortcode.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, CAD, etc …) with this plugin.
Plugin Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to WordPress pages, posts and widgets without touching code 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 your product online for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show your amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
To display this information, just insert the following shortcode into your post or page …
Note: You can also display amounts in dollars and cents (e.g. 16.95, 47.00, 1356.87, etc …)
The example below shows how your shortcode looks after being inserted into your page or post …
After your post has been published, your converted currency will display like this …
Using the same example, let’s now display the same amount into multiple currencies.
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 page …
Once the page or post has been published, your converted currency amounts will then display like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol in the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s say that you want to use a different base currency than the one you have selected as your 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 non-European visitors (for example, Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The screenshot below now shows how the shortcode appears when added to a post …
Once the information has been published, the currency conversion will then appear as shown in the example below …
Currencyr Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your website’s sidebar using a widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar area, choose Appearance > Widgets from your WordPress dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to an ‘Active Widgets’ location …
Configure the widget options as shown in the example below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click Save to update your settings …
Your currency converter tool will now display on your sidebar with the options you have selected …
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 change the symbol in the Multiple Separator settings section.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency values with the forward slash as you can see in the example below …
If you specify another 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 Currencyr plugin integrates with a number of WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: Currencyr plugin website)
And there you have it! 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:
***
"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum