Do you sell any products online internationally? If so, then you should consider providing users with a currency conversion tool.
Currency conversion allows your prospective customers to have the price of a foreign currency amount translated into their local currency when purchasing or checking out products online. It also allows visitors and customers to view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their local currency.
One advantage of showing currency conversion is that it lets visitors see and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own home currency, making it it easier for purchasers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, you can add currency conversion using a plugin to currency conversion to your WordPress site using a plugin, allowing your prospective customers to quickly calculate the cost of your goods.
WP Currency Conversion Plugin – Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WP plugin with a unique converter tooltip. And, it’s completely free!
This currency conversion WP plugin features:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Google and European Central Bank
- Supports Shortcodes
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Supports integration with various online shopping plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can detect local currency automatically
- Full translation support
Note: The Currencyr plugin needs 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 on your server. Ask your web host to upgrade your PHP server installation.
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You can install the Currencyr plugin from your WP dashboard by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking the ”Install Now” button …
When the plugin has been installed and activated, you can configure the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your administration navigation menu …
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 option is ’USD’ …
Similarly, you can choose a data provider from the dropdown menu in the Provider section. The default provider is Yahoo Finance, but you can select one of the other options, such as European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, an API (Application Programming Interface) is required …
You can select how frequently you would like the currency exchange rates to be updated by specifying an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which is an open-source library of Javascript code that lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (such as WP plugins).
Unless you have a reason to change the jQuery settings, you can simply ignore this section …
Edit the rest of the plugin settings to suit your own preferences and click the ‘Save Changes’ button when done …
Once your plugin settings have been configured, you can add currency conversion to any WordPress post or page using shortcodes and widgets.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, JPY, etc …) with this plugin.
Plugin Shortcodes
You can easily insert currency conversion into pages, posts and widgets without editing your web templates using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WP pages and posts:
Let’s say that you sell goods online for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show this price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
All you need to do is add the following shortcode to your post or page …
Note: You can also display prices in dollars and cents (for example, 165.49, 29.95, 400.00, etc …)
The example below shows how the above shortcode looks after being added to a product page …
After your page or post has been published, the converted currency amount will display as you can see in the example below …
Using the same example, let’s also convert the same amount into different currencies.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
The example below shows how the above shortcode looks when you add it to a post …
Once the page or post has been published, the converted currency amounts will then display like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol with this plugin.
Now, suppose you would like to use a different base currency than the one you have selected as your default.
For example, if you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your website targeted to visitors in countries like Australia or Canada, you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
Here’s how the shortcode appears when added to a page …
After publishing your page, your currency conversion will then display as shown below …
How To Use The Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your website or blog’s sidebar using the plugin’s widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar menu, select Appearance > Widgets in the WordPress admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to the ‘Active Widgets’ location …
Configure the widget options as shown in the screenshot below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click Save to update your settings …
The currency converter tool will now show on the 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 the symbol to display as the currency separator when using multiple currencies.
You can select a different symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings section.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency amounts using the forward slash as shown below …
If you modify the symbol and resave your plugin settings …
Your site visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Platform Integration
As stated earlier, the Currencyr plugin integrates with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: plugin website)
And there you have it! Now you can go and 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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