Are you planning to set up an e-commerce web site with WordPress, or sell products to an overseas audience? If so, then it’s a great idea to think about providing users with the convenience of currency conversion on your e-commerce web site.
Currency converting software tools let your prospective customers translate international currency prices into their local currency at the point of sale. It also allows your visitors to see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their own local currency.
One benefit of providing currency conversion on your website is that it allows visitors to view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for customers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, it’s easy and simple to add a currency conversion plugin to your website, allowing your prospective customers to easily perform currency conversions to determine the cost of your products.
Currencyr – Free Currency Converter For WordPress
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free to install and use on your WP website or blog.
Useful plugin features include the following:
- In-line conversion tool
- Supports various exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates and European Central Bank
- Supports Shortcodes
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with a number of e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, Shop & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically determines local currency
- Supports full translations
Important: This plugin needs 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. Ask your web host to update your PHP.
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You can install the plugin from your WordPress dashboard by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking the ”Install Now” button …
After you have installed and activated the plugin, you can access the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your WP dashboard navigation menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings screen …
For example, you can choose your base currency from the Base Currency dropdown menu. The default base currency is ‘United States Dollar – (USD)’ …
Similarly, you can choose any supported data provider from the drop-down 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 or Google Finance …
Note: If you choose Open Exchange Rates, you will need to enter an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can specify how frequently you would like the exchange rates to update by selecting an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which is an open-source library of Javascript code that lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WP plugins).
Unless you have a reason to edit the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Configure the remainder of the plugin settings and click ‘Save Changes’ when done …
After you have finished configuring your plugin settings, you can easily start adding currency conversion to all of your WordPress blog’s pages and posts using shortcodes.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, CAD, etc …) with the Currencyr plugin.
Plugin Shortcodes
You can insert currency conversion into WordPress posts, pages and widgets with no programming knowledge using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to your WP pages and posts:
Let’s say that you retail a product online for a set amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would like to display this amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your product information page.
All you need to do is add the following shortcode to your post or page …
Note: You can also display amounts in dollars and cents (e.g. 6.95, 22.00, 129.10, etc …)
The example below shows how the shortcode will look once you have added it to a post or page …
After publishing your page or post, the converted currency will then display like this …
Using this example, let’s also display the same amount into different currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode looks when added to your content …
Once the post or page has been published, your currency conversion will then appear like this …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol within this plugin.
Now, let’s say that you want to use a different base currency than the one selected as the default.
For example, say you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site 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 looks when added to a post …
After publishing your post, the currency conversion will then display as shown below …
How To Use The Currencyr Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your website or blog’s sidebar using a widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets in your WP dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to the Active Widgets location …
Configure the widget options as shown in the example below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
Your currency converter will now appear on your site’s sidebar menu with the options you have specified when configuring the widget …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful information about using the 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 select a different symbol in the Multiple Separator settings section.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by the forward slash as shown below …
If you select another symbol and update your settings …
Your web visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
WordPress E-Commerce
As mentioned earlier, the plugin can be integrated with a number of WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: Currencyr plugin site)
And there you have it! Now you can go and easily add currency conversion to your e-commerce web site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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