Do you sell any products online worldwide? If so, you should probably think about providing your prospects with the convenience of currency conversion on your e-commerce website.
Currency converting software tools let your customers translate foreign currency amounts to their local currency at the point of sale. It also allows your customers to view the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their local currency.
One great advantage of putting currency conversion on your site is that it lets your customers view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for purchasers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is powered by WordPress, you can add currency conversion via a plugin to WordPress, allowing your customers to quickly and easily understand the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – Free Currency Converting Tool For WP Web Sites
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free!
This currency conversion WP plugin features:
- 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 various e-store plugins such as WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can determine local currency automatically
- Supports full translations
Important: The Currencyr plugin requires PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed. Alternatively, ask your webhosting provider to upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WordPress dashboard by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking “Install Now” …
When the plugin has been installed and activated, you can visit the plugin’s settings page by choosing Currencyr from your admin menu …
The plugin settings area provides a number of configuration options …
For example, you can select your base currency from the Base Currency drop-down menu. The default option is ‘United States Dollar – (USD)’ …
You can also choose which data provider you want to use from a dropdown menu. The default selection is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can select another provider, like FoxRate or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can select how often you want the currency exchange rates to be updated by selecting an option from the Update Rates dropdown menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (like WP plugins).
If you have no reason to modify the jQuery settings, leave these as they are …
Edit the rest of the plugin settings according to your preferences and remember to click ‘Save Changes’ when done …
When your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily start adding currency conversion to your WordPress blog’s posts using a shortcode.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, JPY, etc …) in this plugin.
Using Plugin Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to pages, posts and widgets without having to mess with code using shortcodes.
Below are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to posts and pages:
Let’s say that you sell an item for a set amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to display this conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your product sales page.
All you need to do is insert the following shortcode into your post or page …
Note: You can also add amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 165.49, 197.00, 295.75, etc …)
The example below shows how the shortcode should look after being inserted into a post …
After publishing your content, the converted currency amount will then appear as you can see below …
Using this example, let’s also display 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 appears when added to a page …
Once your page or post has been published, the currency conversion will then display like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further 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 set 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 customers (for example, Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
Here’s how the above shortcode appears when inserted into a page …
Once the post or page has been published, the currency conversion will then display as seen below …
Using The Currencyr Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your website’s sidebar menu using the plugin’s widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets in the WordPress dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to an Active Widgets area …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the screenshot below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
Your currency converter will now show on your sidebar with the options you have specified when configuring the widget …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the Currencyr plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin allows you to specify the symbol 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 currency amounts with the forward slash as you can see in the example below …
If you modify this symbol and resave your settings …
Your website visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Integration
As stated earlier, the plugin can be integrated with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Shopp …
(image sourced from plugin site)
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add a currency converter to your WordPress site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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