Do you sell your products online worldwide? If so, you should consider providing users with currency conversion.
Currency converting tools let your visitors convert international currency transactions to their home currency at the point of sale. It also lets your visitors and customers view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their home currency.
One great benefit of adding currency conversion is that it allows your customers to view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own local currency, making it it easier for customers to calculate their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, you can add a currency converter to WordPress, allowing your site visitors to easily work out the cost of your products.
Currencyr – WordPress Free Currency Conversion Plugin
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a visually attractive converter tooltip. And, it’s free to install and use on your WordPress website or blog.
Some of the useful features of this plugin include:
- Inline converter
- Supports various exchange rates providers, such as Google, Open Exchange Rates and European Central Bank
- Supports Shortcodes
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with a number of e-store plugins like WooCommerce, Shop & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency detection
- Full language translation support
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 webhosting support team to check and upgrade your PHP server installation if needed.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WP admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins section and clicking “Install Now” …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your dashboard area …
The plugin settings screen provides several configuration options …
For example, you can choose a base currency from the ‘Base Currency’ drop-down menu. The default base currency is ‘USD’ …
Similarly, you can select any supported data provider from a drop-down menu. The default selection is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can choose another option, such as FoxRate or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, you will need to obtain an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can choose how often you would like the currency 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 (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 own needs and click the Save Changes button when finished …
After your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily add currency conversion to your WP posts or pages using widgets.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, JPY, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
Using Currencyr Shortcodes
You can easily add currency conversion to WP posts, pages and widgets with no web coding knowledge 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 a product online for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to show your price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your product sales page.
To do this, you simply need to insert the shortcode below into your post or page …
Note: You can also display amounts in dollars and cents (e.g. 175.00, 29.95, 400.00, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode will look once you have added it to the page …
After publishing your post, the currency conversion will appear like this …
Using the same example, let’s now translate the same amount into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use the shortcode below (you can add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
The screenshot below now shows how the shortcode looks when inserted into your content …
After publishing the page, the converted currency amounts will then display as shown in the example below …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol in the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you would like to specify a different base currency than the one you have selected as your default.
For example, say you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your e-commerce pages targeted to visitors in countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
Here’s how the shortcode looks when inserted into your content …
After publishing your content, the converted currency will then display as you can see below …
Plugin Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your site’s sidebar area using the Currencyr widget.
To add the currency converter to your sidebar menu, select Appearance > Widgets from the WP admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to an ‘Active Widgets’ area …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the screenshot below (add the currency codes you want displaying on your widget separated by a comma), and click Save to save your settings …
The currency converter will now show on your site’s sidebar menu with the options you have specified …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you specify the symbol to display as the currency separator when using multiple currencies.
You can change the symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings field.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your prices using a forward slash as you can see in the example below …
If you enter another symbol and update your settings …
Your web visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
Integration With e-Commerce Software
As described earlier, the Currencyr plugin can be integrated with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins like WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(above image sourced from plugin site)
And there you have it! Now you can go and 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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