Do you sell any products online to a global customer base? If so, you should probably think about providing users with the convenience of currency conversion on your e-commerce site.
Currency conversion software allows your prospective customers to have the cost of a foreign currency transaction translated to their home currency at the point of sale. It also lets your visitors and customers see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their own home currency.
One benefit of putting currency conversion on your site is that it lets customers see and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for purchasers to work out their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, you can add currency conversion via a plugin to WordPress, allowing your site visitors to quickly and easily determine the cost of your products.
WordPress Currency Converter – Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. And, it’s completely free!
This plugin includes features like:
- Inline converter
- Supports various exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- Supports Shortcodes
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with various online store plugins such as WooCommerce and Shopp.
- Automatic local currency determination
- Supports full language translations
Note: This 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 web host to check and upgrade your PHP server installation if necessary.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WP admin area by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking “Install Now” …
After you have installed and activated the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your administration menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings page …
For example, you can choose a base currency from the Base Currency drop-down menu if you prefer to use a different currency than the default option ’US Dollar’ …
Similarly, you can specify any supported data provider from the drop-down menu in the ‘Provider’ section. The default provider is Yahoo Finance, but you can also select another provider, like FoxRate or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose Open Exchange Rates as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) is required …
You can select how frequently you would like the exchange rates to be updated by choosing an option from the ‘Update Rates’ dropdown menu …
The 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 edit the jQuery settings, you can just ignore this setting …
Configure the rest of the settings to suit your needs and remember to click ‘Save Changes’ when finished …
When your plugin settings have been configured, you can start adding currency conversion to any WordPress 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, NZD, ZAR, etc …) in this plugin.
Currencyr Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into pages, posts and widgets with no 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 sell your products online for a set amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to display this price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
To display this information, you simply need to add the shortcode below into your post or page …
Note: You can also add prices in dollars and cents (for example, 155.25, 189.00, 295.75, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how your shortcode looks when inserting it into a page or post …
Once your page or post has been published, the converted currency amount will then appear as seen in the example below …
Using the above example, let’s now translate the same price into different currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode appears when added to a post …
Once your page or post has been published, the converted currency amounts will then appear as you can see below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the end of this tutorial to learn how to change the currency separator symbol with the Currencyr plugin.
Now, suppose you would like to use a different base currency than the one set as your default.
For example, say you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to visitors from countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The screenshot below now shows how the shortcode looks when inserted into a page …
Once your page has been published, your converted currency amounts will then appear like this …
Currencyr Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your website’s sidebar area using the Currencyr widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar area, choose Appearance > Widgets in the WordPress admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to an Active Widgets location …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the example below (add the currency codes you want displaying on your widget separated by a comma), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
Your currency converter will now display on your website’s sidebar with the options you have specified …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional 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 field.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency amounts using the forward slash as shown below …
If you select another symbol and update your plugin settings …
Your website visitors will see the new symbol display 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, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(above image sourced from plugin site)
And there you have it! Now you know how to easily add a currency converter to your e-commerce web site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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