Do you sell any products online to a foreign audience? If so, then it’s a great idea to think about providing your prospects with a currency conversion feature.
Currency conversion lets your site visitors convert foreign currency amounts into their home currency at the point of sale. It also lets customers view the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their own local currency.
One great benefit of putting currency conversion on your website is that it lets your customers view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own local currency, making it it easier for customers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, you can add currency conversion using a plugin to WordPress, allowing your site visitors to easily perform currency conversions to determine the cost of your products.
Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique and attractive converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free!
The Currencyr plugin includes many features like:
- Inline converter
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with a number of e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can determine local currency automatically
- Translation support
Important: The Currencyr plugin needs 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 update your PHP.
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You can install the plugin from your WP admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins section and clicking the “Install Now” button …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can access the plugin’s settings area by selecting Currencyr from your WordPress admin user menu …
The plugin settings screen provides several configuration settings …
For example, you can choose a base currency from a drop-down menu. The default currency is ‘USD’ …
You can also select any supported data provider from the drop-down menu in the Provider section. The default selection is Yahoo Finance, but you can also choose another option, like FoxRate or Google Finance …
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 want to update the exchange rates by specifying an option from the ‘Update Rates’ dropdown menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WP plugins).
If you have no reason to modify the jQuery settings, leave them as they are …
Edit the rest of the plugin settings according to your preferences and don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button when you have finished configuring all the options in this section …
After you have configured your settings, you can start adding currency conversion to all of your WP pages using shortcodes and widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, CAD, etc …) with this plugin.
Currencyr Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into posts, pages and widgets without having to edit code using shortcodes.
Below are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to pages and posts:
Let’s say that you are selling a product for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to display this price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your product sales page.
All you need to do is insert the shortcode below into your page content …
Note: You can also add pricing in dollars and cents (for example, 89.95, 79.45, 1356.87, etc …)
The example below shows how the above shortcode will look after being added to your page …
After your page has been published, the converted currency will appear as seen below …
Using the above example, let’s now convert the same price into multiple currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode below (add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
The example below shows how the shortcode looks when inserted into your content …
Once the information has been published, your currency conversion will then appear as seen below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol with this plugin.
Now, suppose you want to select a different base currency than the one you have set as your default.
For example, say you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to customers from countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The screenshot below now shows how the above shortcode appears when you add it to a post …
After publishing your page or post, your currency conversion will then appear like this …
Plugin Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your site’s sidebar area using the Currencyr widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets from the WordPress user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to the Active Widgets area …
Configure the widget settings as shown below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
Your currency converter will now show on your sidebar with the settings you have specified …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the Currencyr 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 field.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your prices using a forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you change this symbol and resave your plugin settings …
Your site visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Software Integration
As mentioned earlier, the plugin integrates with various WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: plugin site)
And there you have it! Now you know how to easily add currency conversion to your WordPress site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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