Do you sell goods online internationally? If so, you may want to consider providing users with a currency conversion feature.
Currency conversion software lets your prospective customers translate foreign currency pricing to their local currency at the point of sale. It also allows visitors to see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their own home currency.
The obvious advantage of providing currency conversion on your site is that it allows visitors to see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for visitors to work out their costs and expenses.
If your site is built with WordPress, it’s simple to add currency conversion via a plugin to WordPress, allowing your customers to quickly understand the cost of your products.
Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a visually attractive converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free to install and use on your WP website or blog.
The Currencyr currency conversion plugin features:
- In-line converter
- Supports several exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Supports integration with various e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically determines local currency
- Translation support
Important: The Currencyr plugin needs PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed on your server. Ask your web host to check and upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins section and clicking “Install Now” …
After the plugin has been installed and activated, you can configure the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your WP dashboard area …
This takes you to the plugin settings section …
For example, you can choose a base currency from the Base Currency dropdown menu if you want a different currency than the default option ’United States Dollar’ …
You can choose which data provider you want to use from the dropdown menu in the ‘Provider’ section. The default provider is Yahoo Finance, but you can also choose another provider, such as European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select Open Exchange Rates as your provider, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can specify how often you want to update the exchange rates by specifying an option from the Update Rates dropdown menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (like WP plugins).
If you have no reason to edit the jQuery settings, you can simply ignore this option …
Edit the rest of the settings to suit your own preferences and remember to click Save Changes when finished …
After your plugin settings have been configured, you can easily add currency conversion to any WP page using widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, ZAR, etc …) with the Currencyr plugin.
Using Currencyr Shortcodes
You can easily add currency conversion to WP posts, pages and widgets without editing your web templates using shortcodes.
Below are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to your WordPress pages and posts:
Let’s say that you are selling an item for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would like to display your conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your page.
All you need to do is add the following shortcode to your page content …
Note: You can also insert pricing in dollars and cents (for example, 188.35, 37.95, 129.10, etc …)
The example below shows how the shortcode looks once you have inserted it into the product page …
After the content has been published, your converted currency will display like this …
Using the above example, let’s now convert the same price into multiple currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode below (you can add as many currency symbols as you want by using vertical pipes) …
The screenshot below now shows how the above shortcode appears when inserted into your content …
After publishing your page, the currency conversion will then display like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn how to change the currency separator symbol with the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you want to specify a different base currency than the one selected as the default.
For example, if you have specified 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 above shortcode appears when added to your content …
After publishing the post, the converted currency will then appear as shown below …
Using The Currencyr Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your site’s sidebar using the Currencyr widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar area, select Appearance > Widgets from the WordPress admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to the Active Widgets area …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the screenshot below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click ‘Save’ to update your settings …
The currency converter will now display on your site’s sidebar with the options you have selected …
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 currency values using the forward slash as you can see in the screenshot below …
If you choose another symbol and resave your settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
Integration With WP e-Commerce Software
As stated earlier, the plugin can be integrated with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: plugin site)
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add a currency converter to your e-commerce site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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