Do you plan to sell products online to an international audience? If so, then it’s a good idea to consider providing your prospects with a currency conversion service.
Currency converting tools let your prospective customers translate international currency prices to their local currency at the point of sale. It also allows visitors to view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their local currency.
The obvious benefit of showing currency conversion on your website is that it lets your customers view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for visitors to work out their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, you can add currency conversion via a plugin to WordPress, allowing your customers to quickly perform currency conversions to determine the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – WP Currency Converting Plugin
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a unique converter tooltip. And, it’s also free to install and use on your WordPress website or blog.
Some of the useful features of this great plugin include the following:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports several exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- Supports Shortcodes
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Supports integration with a number of online store plugins like WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency detection
- Full translation support
Note: The Currencyr plugin requires 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. Ask your webhosting provider to check and upgrade your PHP server installation.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WordPress admin area by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking the “Install Now” button …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can get to the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your WP admin navigation menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings area …
For example, you can choose your base currency from the Base Currency drop-down menu if you prefer to use a different currency than the default option ’United States Dollar’ …
Similarly, you can select any supported data provider from a dropdown menu. The default option is Yahoo Finance, but you can also choose one of the other options, like European Central Bank 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 often you would like to update the currency exchange rates by selecting an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (like WordPress plugins).
Unless there is a reason to change the jQuery settings, you can just ignore this setting …
Configure the rest of the plugin settings and remember to click Save Changes when finished …
When you have configured your settings, you can start adding currency conversion to any WordPress page using a shortcode.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, JPY, etc …) in this plugin.
How To Use Plugin Shortcodes
You can easily add currency conversion to WP posts, pages and widgets with no coding knowledge or skills using shortcodes.
Let’s take a look at some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to pages and posts:
Let’s say that you retail your product on your website for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show the conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your product sales page.
To display this information, just add the following shortcode into your page content …
Note: You can also display pricing in dollars and cents (for example, 175.00, 47.00, 295.75, etc …)
The example below shows how your shortcode looks after you have added it to the page or post …
When your information has been published, the converted currency amount will appear like this …
Using the above example, let’s also translate the same price into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
The example below now shows how the above shortcode looks when you add it to a page …
Once the post or page has been published, the converted currency amounts will then display as shown in the example below …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol in this plugin.
Now, suppose you want to use a different base currency than the one set as the default.
For example, say you have set 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 you add it to your content …
Once your page or post has been published, your converted currency will then appear as seen in the example below …
Currencyr Widget
You can also add a currency converter to your site’s sidebar menu using the Currencyr widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar area, select Appearance > Widgets from the WP user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to an ‘Active Widgets’ location …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the example below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click Save to save your settings …
The currency converter will now show on your site’s sidebar with the options you have specified when configuring the widget …
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 change the symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings field.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your prices with a forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you select another symbol and resave your plugin settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
e-Commerce Platform Integration
As described earlier, the Currencyr plugin can be integrated with various WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, Shopp and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image sourced from 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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