Do you sell goods online to a global market? If so, then you should think about providing users with a currency conversion service.
Currency conversion lets your customers translate international currency amounts to their home currency at the buying or checkout stage. It also lets visitors see the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their local currency.
One advantage of putting currency conversion on your website is that it lets visitors view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for visitors to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is powered by WordPress, it’s simple to add currency conversion using a plugin to WordPress, allowing your prospective customers to quickly and easily work out the cost of your products.
Currencyr – WP Currency Converter
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a unique converter tooltip. It’s also free to install and use on your website or blog.
The Currencyr plugin features:
- In-line converter
- Supports several exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- 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.
- Automatic local currency detection
- Support for language translations
Important: The Currencyr plugin needs your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed on your server. Ask your web hosting company to update your PHP.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WP admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins screen and clicking the “Install” button …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your WordPress admin menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings area …
For example, you can select a base currency from a drop-down menu if you want something other than the default option ‘USD’ …
You can also select a data provider from a drop-down menu. The default provider is Yahoo Finance, but you can also choose one of the other options, like European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select ‘Open Exchange Rates’, you will need to obtain an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can specify how frequently you want the currency 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).
Unless you have a reason to change the jQuery settings, you can just ignore this section …
Configure the remainder of the settings and don’t forget to click ‘Save Changes’ when finished …
After your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily add currency conversion to all of your WordPress blog’s pages using shortcodes.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, JPY, etc …) with this plugin.
Shortcodes
You can insert currency conversion into WP pages, posts and widgets with no technical knowledge using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WP pages and posts:
Let’s say that you sell a product online for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to display your conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your page.
All you need to do is insert the following shortcode into your post or page …
Note: You can also insert prices in dollars and cents (e.g. 155.25, 47.00, 149.00, etc …)
The example below shows how the shortcode will look once you have added it to your post …
After publishing the post, the currency conversion will display like this …
Using this example, let’s now translate the same price into multiple currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode below (add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode looks when inserted into a post …
Once the post or page has been published, the currency conversion will then appear as you can see below …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol within the Currencyr plugin.
Now, suppose you want to use a different base currency than the one you have set as the default.
For example, if you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your website targeted to customers from countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
You can see how the shortcode appears when inserted into your content …
After publishing your post or page, the currency conversion will then display as shown in the screenshot below …
How To Use The Plugin Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your website or blog’s sidebar area using the Currencyr widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar menu, select Appearance > Widgets from your WP dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to an ‘Active Widgets’ area …
Configure the widget options as shown below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
Your currency conversion tool will now appear on your sidebar with the options you have selected …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin allows you to specify a symbol of your choice 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, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Displays your currency values separated by a forward slash as you can see in the example below …
If you select another symbol and resave your plugin settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Integration
As described earlier, the plugin integrates with a number of WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, Shopp and Easy Digital Downloads …
(above image sourced from Currencyr plugin website)
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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