Do you sell goods or services online globally? If so, then you should consider providing your web visitors with the convenience of currency conversion on your e-commerce website.
Currency converting software lets your customers translate international currency transactions to their home currency at the buying or checkout stage. It also allows customers to see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their local currency.
The obvious benefit of providing currency conversion is that it allows customers to view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, making it it easier for purchasers to calculate their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, you can add a currency conversion plugin to your site, allowing your prospective customers to quickly and easily calculate the cost of your products.
WordPress Free Currency Conversion Plugin – Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a unique converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free to install and use on your WordPress website.
This currency conversion WP plugin includes great features like the following:
- In-line conversion tool
- Supports several exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- Supports Shortcodes
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Supports integration with a number of e-store plugins such as WooCommerce, Shop & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can determine local currency automatically
- Translation support
Important: The Currencyr plugin requires 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 hosting provider to check and upgrade your PHP server installation if needed.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WordPress 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 get to the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your WP dashboard navigation menu …
The plugin settings area offers you various configuration settings …
For example, you can select your base currency from a dropdown menu. The default base currency is (‘USD’) …
You can also choose which data provider you want to use from a drop-down menu. The default provider is Yahoo Finance, but you can choose 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 an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can choose how frequently you want to update the currency exchange rates by specifying an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down menu …
The 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 (e.g. WordPress plugins).
Unless there is a reason to change the jQuery settings, you can just ignore this option …
Edit the rest of the plugin settings and remember to click ‘Save Changes’ when done …
When your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily add currency conversion to any WP post using widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, CAD, etc …) in this plugin.
Currencyr Shortcodes
You can easily add currency conversion to pages, posts and widgets with no web coding knowledge or skills using shortcodes.
Below are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to pages and posts:
Let’s say that you sell an item on your site for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to show your price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
To display this information, simply add the following shortcode to your page content …
Note: You can also add amounts in dollars and cents (e.g. 175.00, 47.00, 2499.99, etc …)
The example below shows how your shortcode looks when inserting it into a page …
After publishing the information, the converted currency amount will then appear like this …
Using this example, let’s now translate the same price into different currency formats.
To do this, use the shortcode below (you can add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
The example below shows how the shortcode looks when added to a post …
After publishing your information, the currency conversion will then display as seen in the screenshot below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the end of this tutorial to learn how to change the currency separator symbol in the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s say that you want to use a different base currency than the one set as your default.
For example, if you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your e-commerce pages targeted to non-European customers (like Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the above shortcode appears when added to your content …
After publishing your post or page, your currency conversion will then appear like this …
How To Use The Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your website’s sidebar using the plugin’s widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets in the WP dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag 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 converter will now display on your sidebar with the settings you have specified when configuring the widget …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful information about using the Currencyr plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you specify a symbol of your choice to display as the currency separator when using several 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 a forward slash as shown below …
If you specify another symbol and resave your settings …
Your website visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Software Integration
As stated earlier, the plugin integrates with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce and Shopp …
(above image sourced from Currencyr plugin website)
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add a currency converter to your WordPress website.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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