Do you sell products online globally? If so, then it’s a great idea to consider providing your prospects with currency conversion.
Currency conversion lets your prospective customers convert international currency prices into their home currency when checking out products online. It also allows visitors and customers to view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their own home currency.
One great benefit of adding currency conversion is that it lets customers view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for purchasers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is built using WordPress, it’s quite simple to add currency conversion using a plugin to your WP website or blog, allowing your customers to quickly and easily determine the cost of your products.
WordPress Currency Converting Plugin – Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a unique and attractive converter tooltip. It’s also free to install and use on your site.
The Currencyr currency conversion plugin features:
- In-line converter
- Supports various exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Can be integrated with various e-store plugins such as WooCommerce, Shop and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically determines local currency
- Translation support
Note: This plugin needs PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP on your server. Alternatively, ask your web hosting support team to update your PHP server installation.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WP admin area 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 choosing Currencyr from your dashboard menu …
The plugin settings page provides several configuration options …
For example, you can select your base currency from a drop-down menu if you prefer something other than the default option ’USD’ …
Similarly, you can specify which data provider you want to use from the drop-down menu in the Provider section. The default option is Yahoo Finance, but you can select another option, like European Central Bank or Google Finance …
Note: If you choose Open Exchange Rates as your provider, you will need to enter an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can specify how often you would like to update the currency exchange rates by selecting an option from the ‘Update Rates’ dropdown menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (like WP plugins).
Unless there is a reason to modify the jQuery settings, simply ignore this option …
Configure the remainder of the settings according to your preferences and remember to click ‘Save Changes’ when you have finished configuring all of your options …
After you have finished configuring your settings, you can easily add currency conversion to any WordPress post or page using a shortcode.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, ZAR, etc …) in this plugin.
How To Use Currencyr Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into WordPress posts, pages and widgets without touching code using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WordPress pages and posts:
Let’s say that you sell an item online for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to show this amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your product information page.
All you need to do is add the following shortcode to your page content …
Note: You can also add prices in dollars and cents (for example, 188.35, 79.45, 1356.87, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the above shortcode will look after you have added it to your product page …
After publishing the information, the converted currency amount will then display as shown in the example below …
Using this example, let’s also display the same price into different currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
The screenshot below now shows how the shortcode looks when you add it to a page …
Once your content has been published, your currency conversion will then display like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol within this plugin.
Now, suppose you want to use a different base currency than the one set 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 customers in countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The screenshot below now shows how the above shortcode looks when inserted into a post …
Once the post has been published, the currency conversion will then appear as you can see below …
Using The Currencyr Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your site’s sidebar using the Currencyr widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets from your WP admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to the ‘Active Widgets’ area …
Configure the widget options as shown below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
Your currency converter tool will now appear on the sidebar with the options 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 the symbol 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 shown below …
If you change the symbol and update your settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
Using The Plugin With WP-Compatible e-Commerce Platforms
As stated earlier, the plugin integrates with various WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image sourced from Currencyr plugin website)
Congratulations! Now you can go and easily add currency conversion to your e-commerce site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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