Do you plan to set up an e-commerce website using WordPress, or sell goods or services to a worldwide market? If so, then you may want to think about providing your potential customers with currency conversion.
Currency conversion software allows your customers to have the cost of an international currency transaction converted 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 local currency.
The obvious advantage of adding currency conversion to your website is that it allows visitors to view 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, it’s simple to add a currency converter to your site, allowing your prospective customers to quickly and easily work out the cost of your products.
Currencyr
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a visually attractive converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free!
The Currencyr useful WordPress plugin features:
- In-line conversion tool
- Supports several exchange rates providers, like Google, Open Exchange Rates and FoxRates
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Supports integration with various e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce & Shopp.
- Automatic local currency detection
- Full translation support
Note: This 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. Alternatively, ask your webhosting company to update your PHP.
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You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins screen and clicking “Install Now” …
When the plugin has been installed and activated, you can visit the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your administration menu …
The plugin settings area provides a number of configuration settings …
For example, you can select a base currency from a dropdown menu. The default currency is ’United States Dollar’ …
You can also choose which data provider you want to use from a drop-down menu. The default option is Yahoo Finance, but you can select one of the other options, like 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) will be required …
You can specify how often you want the currency exchange rates to be updated by specifying an option from the ‘Update Rates’ dropdown menu …
The Currencyr 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 (such as WordPress plugins).
Unless there is a reason to change the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Edit the rest of the plugin settings according to your own preferences and remember to click the Save Changes button when done …
Once your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily add currency conversion to any WordPress page using widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, JPY, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
Using Plugin Shortcodes
You can easily add currency conversion to pages, posts and widgets without editing your web templates using shortcodes.
Below are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to posts and pages:
Let’s say that you sell goods for a set amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to show the amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your product sales page.
To display this information, simply insert the shortcode below to your page content …
Note: You can also add pricing in dollars and cents (e.g. 165.49, 97.00, 1356.87, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the above shortcode will look once you have inserted it into your post …
When the page or post has been published, the currency conversion will display as you can see below …
Using the same example, let’s now convert the same price into multiple currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode looks when inserted into a page …
Once the page or post has been published, the currency conversion will then appear like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol in this plugin.
Now, let’s say that you would like to specify a different base currency than the one set as the default.
For example, say you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your website targeted to visitors from countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
Here’s how the above shortcode appears when inserted into your content …
After publishing your post, your currency conversion will then display like this …
Plugin Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your site’s sidebar using the plugin’s widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar area, select Appearance > Widgets in the WordPress user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to the ‘Active Widgets’ location …
Configure the widget settings as shown below (add any currency codes you want displaying on your widget separated by commas), and click Save to update your settings …
The currency conversion tool will now appear on your site’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 a forward slash as shown below …
If you modify this symbol and resave your settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
WordPress E-Commerce
As mentioned earlier, the plugin can be integrated with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, Shopp and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image sourced from Currencyr plugin site)
Congratulations! Now you can go and easily add a currency converter to your e-commerce site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now