Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce website or selling products globally? If so, then you should consider providing users with a currency conversion feature.
Currency conversion allows your visitors to translate foreign currency pricing into their home currency at the point of sale. It also lets visitors and customers see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their own home currency.
One advantage of adding currency conversion to your site is that it lets your customers see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for customers to work out their costs and expenses.
If your site is built using WordPress, you can add a currency converter to WordPress, allowing your prospective customers to quickly work out the cost of your products.
Currencyr – Free Currency Converter For WordPress
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a unique and attractive converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free to install and use on your WordPress website.
Plugin features include the following:
- In-line conversion tool
- Supports several exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Can be integrated with various e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically determines local currency
- Translation support
Important: The Currencyr plugin needs PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed. Alternatively, ask your web hosting company to upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WP admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins area and clicking the “Install Now” button …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your admin user area …
This takes you to the plugin settings section …
For example, you can select a base currency from the Base Currency drop-down menu. The default base currency is (‘USD’) …
Similarly, you can choose which data provider you want to use from the dropdown menu in the ‘Provider’ section. The default selection is Yahoo Finance, but you can also choose another provider, like European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose Open Exchange Rates, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can select how frequently you want to update the exchange rates by specifying an option from the Update Rates dropdown menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (like WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to edit the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Configure the remainder of the settings and click ‘Save Changes’ when done …
After you have configured your plugin settings, you can easily add currency conversion to all of your WP site’s posts 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, ZAR, etc …) with the Currencyr plugin.
Currencyr Shortcodes
You can easily add currency conversion to WP posts, pages and widgets with no programming skills using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WordPress posts and pages:
Let’s say that you are selling goods for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to display your amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
To display this information, simply insert the shortcode below to your post or page …
Note: You can also insert amounts in dollars and cents (e.g. 165.49, 197.00, 544.97, etc …)
The example below shows how the shortcode should look once you have added it to the page or post …
After the post or page has been published, the converted currency will display like this …
Using the above example, let’s now translate the same price into multiple currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode appears when inserted into a post …
After publishing the information, the converted currency will then display as you can see below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol with the Currencyr plugin.
Now, suppose 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 customers from countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode looks when you add it to a post …
After publishing your information, your currency conversion will then appear like this …
Using The Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your website or blog’s sidebar section using the plugin’s widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets from the WP admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to the Active Widgets location …
Configure the widget options as shown below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click Save to update your settings …
The currency conversion tool will now appear on your site’s sidebar with the settings you have selected …
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 several currencies.
You can select a different symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings section.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by a forward slash as you can see in the example below …
If you modify this symbol and resave your settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Platform Integration
As mentioned earlier, the plugin can be integrated with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, Shopp and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: 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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