Do you sell goods online to an overseas customer base? If so, then you may want to think about providing users with a currency conversion tool.
Currency converting tools allow your customers to have the price of a foreign currency transaction translated into their home currency at the point of sale. It also lets visitors and customers see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their local currency.
One advantage of displaying currency conversion is that it lets customers see and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own home currency, making it it easier for customers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, you can add currency conversion via a plugin to your web site, allowing your site visitors to quickly work out the cost of your products.
Currencyr – WordPress Free Currency Converter
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free!
Useful plugin features include:
- Inline converter
- Supports various exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Google & European Central Bank
- Supports Shortcodes
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Supports integration with various e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, Shop and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can detect local currency automatically
- Translation support
Note: The Currencyr plugin requires your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed. Alternatively, ask your webhosting provider to check and upgrade your PHP server installation if required.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WordPress admin area by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking the “Install Now” button …
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, you can get to the plugin’s settings area by choosing Currencyr from your WP administration navigation menu …
The plugin settings section provides various configuration settings …
For example, you can select your base currency from the Base Currency drop-down menu. The default option is ‘USD’ …
Similarly, you can select a data provider from a drop-down menu. The default provider is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can select one of the other options, such as FoxRate or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can specify how often you would like to update the exchange rates by choosing 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 (e.g. WordPress plugins).
Unless you have a reason to change the jQuery settings, leave these as they are …
Configure the remainder of the settings according to your own needs and click the Save Changes button when you have configured this screen …
Once your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily start adding currency conversion to WordPress blog’s pages and posts using widgets.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, ZAR, etc …) with this plugin.
Using Currencyr Shortcodes
You can easily add currency conversion to WP posts, pages and widgets with no web coding skills or knowledge using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to your WordPress posts and pages:
Let’s say that you are selling your products on your website for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to display the amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your product sales page.
To do this, just insert the following shortcode into your post or page …
Note: You can also add pricing in dollars and cents (for example, 16.95, 47.00, 149.00, etc …)
The example below shows how your shortcode should look once you have added it to a post …
After publishing the page, the currency conversion will display as seen below …
Using the above example, let’s also convert the same amount into multiple currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode below (add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode looks when added to a page …
After publishing the content, the currency conversion will then appear like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol within the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you would like to select a different base currency than the one selected as your default.
For example, say you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your e-commerce pages 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 appears when inserted into a page …
After publishing the page, your currency conversion will then appear as you can see below …
Using The Plugin Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your website or blog’s sidebar area using the plugin’s widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets in the WordPress admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to the ‘Active Widgets’ location …
Configure the widget options as shown in the example below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to update your settings …
The currency converter tool will now show on your website’s sidebar menu with the options you have selected …
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 section.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency values using the forward slash as shown below …
If you modify this symbol and resave your plugin settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Integration
As mentioned earlier, the plugin can be integrated with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: Currencyr plugin website)
And there you have it! Now you know how to easily add a currency converter to your e-commerce website.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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