Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce website or selling goods online? If so, then you should consider providing your potential customers with currency conversion.
Currency converting software allows your customers to have the price of an international currency amount converted to their home currency when checking out products online. It also lets customers see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their own home currency.
One advantage of showing currency conversion on your site is that it allows your customers to 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 built with WordPress, you can add currency conversion via a plugin to your WP site, allowing your visitors to quickly and easily work out the cost of your products.
WP Free Currency Converting Plugin – Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a visually attractive converter tooltip. It’s also free!
This plugin features:
- In-line converter
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, like Google, Open Exchange Rates & FoxRates
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with a number of online shopping plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can detect local currency automatically
- Support for language translations
Important: This plugin requires your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP. Ask your webhosting provider to upgrade your PHP server installation.
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You can install the plugin from your WP admin area by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking “Install Now” …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can visit the plugin’s settings screen by choosing Currencyr from your WordPress dashboard navigation menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings screen …
For example, you can select your base currency from the Base Currency dropdown menu if you want a different currency than the default option ’US Dollar’ …
You can also select a data provider from a drop-down menu. The default provider is Yahoo Finance, but you can also select one of the other options, like FoxRate or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) will be required …
You can choose how often you want the exchange rates to be updated by choosing 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).
If you have no reason to change the jQuery settings, you can simply ignore this option …
Edit the rest of the plugin settings and don’t forget to click ‘Save Changes’ when done …
After your plugin settings have been configured, you can add currency conversion to any WordPress post or page using shortcodes.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, CAD, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
Shortcodes
You can easily add currency conversion to WordPress pages, posts and widgets with no web coding skills or knowledge using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WP pages and posts:
Let’s say that you are selling a product for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show this amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
All you need to do is add the shortcode below to your post or page …
Note: You can also insert pricing in dollars and cents (for example, 188.35, 29.95, 2499.99, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the above shortcode should look after being inserted into the page …
After publishing your post or page, your converted currency amount will then appear as seen in the screenshot below …
Using the same example, let’s now convert the same price into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (you can add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode looks when you add it to a post …
After publishing your post, your currency conversion will then appear like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol with the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s say that you would like to select a different base currency than the one you have set as your default.
For example, if you have specified 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 …
You can see how the above shortcode looks when added to a page …
Once the post or page has been published, your converted currency amounts will then appear as you can see below …
Currencyr Widget
You can also add a currency converter to your website or blog’s sidebar section using the plugin’s widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar area, select Appearance > Widgets in your WordPress user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to an Active Widgets area …
Configure the widget options as shown in the screenshot below (add any currency codes you would like displaying on your widget separated by a comma), and click ‘Save’ to update your settings …
The currency converter tool will now display on your website’s sidebar menu with the settings you have selected …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you 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 field.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency values using the forward slash as you can see in the example below …
If you modify the symbol and resave your settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Software Integration
As described earlier, the Currencyr plugin integrates with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, Shopp and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: plugin website)
Congratulations! Now you can go and easily add currency conversion to your WordPress web site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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