Do you sell goods and services online globally? If so, then you should think about providing your potential customers with the convenience of currency conversion on your e-commerce web site.
Currency converting tools let your prospective customers convert foreign currency transactions to their local currency at the purchase or checkout stage. It also allows visitors and customers to see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their local currency.
The obvious advantage of adding currency conversion to your website is that it lets visitors view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, making it it easier for customers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is built using WordPress, it’s quite easy and simple to add currency conversion via a plugin to currency conversion to WordPress via a plugin, allowing your customers to quickly and easily perform currency conversions to determine the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – Free Currency Converting Plugin For WP Sites
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free to install and use on your site.
This plugin includes features such as:
- Inline converter
- Supports several exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Google & European Central Bank
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Supports integration with a number of e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically determines local currency
- 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 are running an older version of PHP on your server. Ask your webhosting company to check and upgrade your PHP server installation if needed.
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You can install the plugin from your WP admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins screen and clicking the “Install Now” button …
When you have installed and activated the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your administration navigation menu …
The plugin settings screen offers you a number of configuration settings …
For example, you can choose a base currency from the Base Currency dropdown menu. The default currency is ‘United States Dollar – (USD)’ …
You can also choose which data provider you want to use from a drop-down menu. The default option is Yahoo Finance, but you can also select one of the other options, like European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose Open Exchange Rates as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) will be required …
You can specify how frequently you want the exchange rates to be updated by selecting 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 (like WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to change the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Configure the rest of the plugin settings and remember to click the Save Changes button when you have configured this page …
Once your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily add currency conversion to WP website’s pages using shortcodes and widgets.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, JPY, etc …) in this plugin.
Using Plugin Shortcodes
You can easily add currency conversion to WordPress posts, pages and widgets with no web coding skills 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 are selling a product for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to show the conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
All you need to do is insert the following shortcode into your post or page …
Note: You can also insert prices in dollars and cents (e.g. 89.95, 37.95, 2499.99, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode should look after you have added it to a post …
Once the information has been published, your converted currency will then display like this …
Using the above example, let’s now convert the same price into different currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode looks when inserted into a page …
Once your page or post has been published, your currency conversion will then appear as seen below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol in this plugin.
Now, let’s say that you want to use a different base currency than the one selected as the default.
For example, if you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to visitors in countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the above shortcode appears when you add it to a page …
After publishing your page, the currency conversion will then display like this …
Plugin Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your site’s sidebar area using a widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar menu, choose Appearance > Widgets from your WP dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to the Active Widgets location …
Configure the widget settings as shown below (add the currency codes you would like to display on your widget separated by commas), and click Save to update your settings …
Your currency converter will now show on the 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 plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you specify the symbol 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 the forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you choose another symbol and update your settings …
Your website visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Integration
As stated earlier, the plugin can be integrated with various WP-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WP-eCommerce and Shopp …
(image sourced from plugin website)
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add a currency converter to your e-commerce site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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