Are you planning to set up a WordPress-based e-commerce site, or sell any products globally? If so, you should think about providing your web visitors with the convenience of currency conversion on your e-commerce web site.
Currency conversion tools let your prospects have the price of an international currency transaction converted to their home currency when purchasing products on e-commerce sites. It also lets your visitors and customers view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their own local currency.
One great advantage of adding currency conversion to your site is that it lets visitors 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 your site is powered by WordPress, it’s simple to add a currency conversion plugin to your web site, allowing your prospective customers to easily perform currency conversions to determine the cost of your products.
Currencyr – WP Free Currency Conversion Plugin
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique and attractive converter tooltip. It’s also free to install and use on your WordPress website.
The Currencyr useful plugin includes a number of features such as:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports several exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Google & FoxRates
- Supports Shortcodes
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Can be integrated with various online shopping plugins like WooCommerce, Shop and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically detects local currency
- Supports full translations
Note: The Currencyr plugin requires your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed on your server. Ask your webhosting provider to upgrade 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 installing and activating the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your WP administration navigation menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings screen …
For example, you can select your base currency from the ‘Base Currency’ drop-down menu. The default option is ’United States Dollar’ …
Similarly, you can specify which data provider you want to use from a dropdown menu. The default option is Yahoo Finance, but you can also choose one of the other options, like European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select ‘Open Exchange Rates’, an API (Application Programming Interface) is required …
You can specify how often you want the exchange rates to update by specifying an option from the Update Rates drop-down menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (e.g. WP plugins).
If you have no reason to change the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Configure the rest of the plugin settings to suit your needs and click ‘Save Changes’ when finished …
After you have configured your settings, you can easily add currency conversion to any WordPress page using widgets.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, JPY, etc …) with this plugin.
Using Currencyr Shortcodes
You can easily add currency conversion to WP 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 goods online for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to display the conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your page.
All you need to do is insert the shortcode below into your post or page …
Note: You can also insert pricing in dollars and cents (for example, 175.00, 197.00, 295.75, etc …)
The example below shows how your shortcode will look after being inserted into a product page …
After publishing your information, your converted currency amount will then appear as shown below …
Using the same example, let’s also convert the same amount into different currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode below (add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode appears when added to a post …
After publishing the post or page, your currency conversion will then display like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol with the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s say that you want to specify a different base currency than the one selected as your default.
For example, if you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to visitors from countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The example below shows how the shortcode appears when added to your content …
After publishing the information, the converted currency amounts will then display as seen in the screenshot below …
Plugin Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your site’s sidebar using the plugin’s widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar area, select Appearance > Widgets from your WordPress dashboard 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 save your settings …
The currency conversion tool will now appear on your site’s sidebar menu with the options you have specified …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful information about using the plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you specify the symbol to display as the currency separator when using several currencies.
You can select a different symbol in the Multiple Separator settings field.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your prices using the forward slash as shown below …
If you modify the symbol and update your plugin settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Integration
As described earlier, the Currencyr plugin integrates with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, Shopp and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: Currencyr plugin site)
Congratulations! Now you can go and easily add currency conversion to your e-commerce website.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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