Are you planning to sell goods online internationally? If so, you should consider providing your potential customers with currency conversion.
Currency conversion tools let your visitors have the cost of a foreign currency amount translated to their home currency at the point of sale. It also allows your visitors and customers to view the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their local currency.
The obvious benefit of adding currency conversion to your website is that it allows customers to see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, making it it easier for purchasers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is powered by WordPress, it’s really simple to add currency conversion via a plugin to your website or blog, allowing your site visitors to quickly perform currency conversions to determine the cost of your products.
Currencyr – WP Free Currency Conversion Plugin
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a unique converter tooltip. And, it’s also free to install and use on your WP website or blog.
This useful WP plugin features:
- In-line converter
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, like Yahoo! & FoxRates
- Supports Shortcodes
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with various e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically determines local currency
- Support for language 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. Alternatively, ask your web host to check and upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WP admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins area and clicking “Install Now” …
After you have installed and activated the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your WordPress administration navigation menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings section …
For example, you can select a base currency from a dropdown menu. The default option is ’USD’ …
You can choose a data provider from a drop-down menu. The default selection is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can also select another provider, like European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select Open Exchange Rates as your provider, you will need to obtain an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can specify how often you would like the currency exchange rates to update by choosing 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 (like WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to change the jQuery settings, leave them as they are …
Edit the rest of the plugin settings and click the Save Changes button when done …
After your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily add currency conversion to WP pages using shortcodes and widgets.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, ZAR, etc …) in this plugin.
Shortcodes
You can easily add currency conversion to pages, posts and widgets without having to edit your web templates using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to your WP pages and posts:
Let’s say that you are selling an item on your site 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 product information page.
To do this, just add the following shortcode to your post or page …
Note: You can also add pricing in dollars and cents (for example, 188.35, 47.00, 1356.87, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the above shortcode will look once you have inserted it into a product page …
After publishing the post or page, your currency conversion will then display like this …
Using the above example, let’s also translate the same amount into multiple currencies.
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 appears when you add it to a page …
Once the information has been published, the currency conversion will then display like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol in this plugin.
Now, suppose you want to specify a different base currency than the one selected as your default.
For example, say you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your e-commerce pages targeted to non-European visitors (e.g. Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the above shortcode looks when you add it to your content …
Once the content has been published, the converted currency will then display as seen below …
Using The Currencyr Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your website’s sidebar menu using the plugin’s widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets from your WP dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to the ‘Active Widgets’ area …
Configure the widget settings as shown below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
The currency conversion tool will now display on the sidebar with the settings you have selected …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful information about using the plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin allows you to specify the symbol to display as the currency separator when using multiple 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 the forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you change this symbol and update your settings …
Your web visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
e-Commerce Platform Integration
As stated earlier, the plugin can be integrated with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image sourced from Currencyr plugin website)
And there you have it! Now you can go and easily add a currency converter to your e-commerce web site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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