Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce site or making products available for sale globally? If so, then you should probably think about providing your prospects with currency conversion.
Currency conversion allows your prospective customers to convert foreign currency prices into their local currency at the point of sale. It also lets your visitors view the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their home currency.
One benefit of displaying currency conversion on your website is that it lets your customers view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for visitors to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is powered by WordPress, it’s really easy to add a currency converter to currency conversion to your site via a plugin, allowing your prospective customers to quickly understand the cost of your goods.
WordPress Free Currency Converter – Currencyr
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a unique converter tooltip. And, it’s free to install and use on your WP site.
Useful plugin features include:
- In-line converter
- Supports various exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Google & European Central Bank
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Can be integrated with various online store plugins like WooCommerce, Shop & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically determines local currency
- Full support for language translations
Important: This plugin needs 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 on your server. Ask your web host to upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WordPress dashboard by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking “Install Now” …
After you have installed and activated the plugin, you can get to the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your dashboard menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings screen …
For example, you can select a base currency from the Base Currency drop-down menu if you prefer to use something other than the default option (USD) …
Similarly, you can select which data provider you want to use from the dropdown menu in the Provider section. The default provider is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can choose one of the other options, like European Central Bank or Google Finance …
Note: If you select ‘Open Exchange Rates’, you will need to obtain an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can choose how frequently you would like the currency exchange rates to update by choosing an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (like WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to modify the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Edit the rest of the settings to suit your own needs and don’t forget to click ‘Save Changes’ when you have configured all the settings on this page …
When you have finished configuring your plugin settings, you can easily add currency conversion to WordPress blog’s pages and posts using widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, ZAR, etc …) with this plugin.
Plugin Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to WordPress posts, pages and widgets with no web coding knowledge using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to posts and pages:
Let’s say that you sell an item online for a set amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show this price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
All you need to do is insert the following shortcode into your page content …
Note: You can also add amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 155.25, 189.00, 400.00, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode should look after being inserted into the post or page …
After publishing your information, your converted currency will display as seen in the example below …
Using this example, let’s now display the same price into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode looks when added to a post …
Once the post or page has been published, your converted currency amounts will then appear as seen in the screenshot below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol in this plugin.
Now, suppose you would like to use a different base currency than the one you have selected as your default.
For example, if you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your website targeted to non-European visitors (like Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the shortcode looks when you add it to your content …
After publishing your information, the converted currency will then display like this …
Using The Plugin Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your site’s sidebar using the Currencyr widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar menu, select Appearance > Widgets in the WordPress user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to the Active Widgets location …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the example below (add the currency codes you want to display on your widget separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to update your settings …
Your currency converter will now display on the sidebar with the options you have specified when configuring the widget …
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 section.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your prices using the forward slash as shown below …
If you choose another symbol and resave your plugin settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
WP E-Commerce
As mentioned earlier, the Currencyr plugin integrates with various WP-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, Shopp and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: Currencyr plugin site)
And there you have it! Now you can go and 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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