Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce website or selling goods online? If so, then it’s a great idea to consider providing your web visitors with currency conversion.
Currency conversion software tools allow your customers to translate international currency transactions to their home currency at the purchase or checkout stage. It also lets your visitors view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their own home currency.
One benefit of putting currency conversion on your website is that it lets customers see and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own local currency, making it it easier for customers to calculate their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, you can add currency conversion using a plugin to currency conversion to your WP site using a plugin, allowing your prospective customers to quickly calculate the cost of your products.
Currencyr – Currency Converting Tool For WP Websites
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique and attractive converter tooltip. And, it’s free to install and use on your site.
This currency conversion plugin includes advanced features such as:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports several exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Google & FoxRates
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with a number of e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency detection
- Full translation support
Important: This plugin requires PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed. Ask your webhosting company to check and upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WP dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins section and clicking the ”Install Now” button …
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, you can visit the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your WP dashboard menu …
The plugin settings page offers you various configuration settings …
For example, you can select your base currency from the ‘Base Currency’ drop-down menu. The default option is ’US Dollar’ …
You can also select any supported data provider from a dropdown menu. The default provider is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can also select one of the other options, like European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select Open Exchange Rates as your provider, you will need to enter an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can choose how frequently you would like the currency exchange rates to be updated by specifying an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (e.g. WP plugins).
Unless you have a reason to change the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Edit the rest of the settings to suit your needs and don’t forget to click Save Changes when finished …
Once your plugin settings have been configured, you can start adding currency conversion to any WP page using a shortcode.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, ZAR, etc …) with the Currencyr plugin.
How To Use Plugin Shortcodes
You can insert currency conversion into WordPress posts, pages and widgets with no technical knowledge or skills 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 an item for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to show this conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your product sales page.
To display this information, simply insert the shortcode below into your post or page …
Note: You can also insert pricing in dollars and cents (for example, 155.25, 197.00, 544.97, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the above shortcode looks when inserting it into your page or post …
After your post or page has been published, the converted currency amount will then appear like this …
Using the same example, let’s also display the same price into different currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
The example below shows how the shortcode appears when inserted into your content …
After publishing your content, your converted currency amounts will then display like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol in this plugin.
Now, suppose you would like to specify 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 website targeted to non-European visitors (for example, Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The example below shows how the shortcode looks when you add it to your content …
After publishing the information, your converted currency will then appear as shown below …
Using The Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your site’s sidebar area using the plugin’s widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets from the WP admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to the Active Widgets location …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the example below (add the currency codes you want displaying on your widget separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to update your settings …
Your currency converter will now display on the sidebar menu with the options you have specified …
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 multiple currencies.
You can change the symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings section.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by a forward slash as shown below …
If you specify another symbol and update your settings …
Your web visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
e-Commerce Platform Integration
As described earlier, the plugin integrates with various WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, Shopp and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: Currencyr plugin website)
And there you have it! Now you know how to easily add a currency converter to your e-commerce website.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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