Are you planning to sell goods online internationally? If so, then you should consider providing your web visitors with a currency conversion service.
Currency conversion tools allow your prospects to have the price of an international currency transaction converted into their local currency when checking out products online. It also allows your customers to see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their home currency.
One great advantage of putting currency conversion on your website is that it allows customers to 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 built with WordPress, you can add a currency conversion plugin to WordPress, allowing your site visitors to easily perform currency conversions to determine the cost of your products.
WordPress Currency Converter – Currencyr
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free to install and use on your web site.
The Currencyr useful WP plugin includes a number of practical features like:
- In-line conversion tool
- Supports several exchange rates providers, like Yahoo! & European Central Bank
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with various online store plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can determine local currency automatically
- Support for language translations
Important: The Currencyr plugin requires 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. Alternatively, ask your webhosting company to upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WordPress dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins screen and clicking the “Install Now” button …
After the plugin has been installed and activated, you can configure the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your admin user menu …
The plugin settings area provides many configuration options …
For example, you can choose your base currency from the ‘Base Currency’ dropdown menu if you prefer a different currency than the default option ’USD’ …
Similarly, you can specify which data provider you want to use from the dropdown menu in the ‘Provider’ section. The default option is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can 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) is required …
You can choose how frequently you want the exchange rates to be updated by specifying 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 (such as WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to modify the jQuery settings, just ignore this section …
Configure the remainder 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 shortcodes.
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.
Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to WP posts, pages and widgets with no technical skills or knowledge using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to posts and pages:
Let’s say that you are selling a product for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to display your price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your page.
To do this, simply add the following shortcode into your page content …
Note: You can also insert pricing in dollars and cents (for example, 165.49, 22.00, 129.10, etc …)
The example below shows how the above shortcode looks once you have added it to the post …
After the post or page has been published, your converted currency will appear like this …
Using this example, let’s also translate the same price into different currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (you can add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
The screenshot below shows how the above shortcode looks when you add it to a page …
After publishing the content, the converted currency will then appear like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol in the Currencyr plugin.
Now, suppose you want to use a different base currency than the one selected as your default.
For example, if you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to non-European customers (for example, Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The example below shows how the shortcode looks when you add it to a post …
Once the post has been published, the converted currency amounts will then appear like this …
Using The Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your site’s sidebar using a widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar area, 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 below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
The 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 allows you to specify the symbol to display as the currency separator when using multiple 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 with the forward slash as you can see in the example below …
If you change this symbol and update your plugin settings …
Your website visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
Integration With WordPress e-Commerce Platforms
As described earlier, the Currencyr plugin can be integrated with various WP-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Shopp …
(image source: Currencyr plugin website)
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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