Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce site or selling products globally? If so, then here’s a great idea: consider providing your prospects with a currency conversion feature.
Currency converting tools allow your visitors to translate international currency prices into their home currency at the purchase or checkout phase. It also lets visitors see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their home currency.
The obvious benefit of adding currency conversion is that it lets customers see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home 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 conversion plugin to your WordPress site, allowing your visitors to quickly perform currency conversions to determine the cost of your goods.
Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. Best of all, it’s free!
Some of the features of this plugin include the following:
- In-line converter
- Supports various exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Open Exchange Rates & FoxRates
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Supports integration with a number of online store plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency detection
- Translation support
Note: The Currencyr plugin requires PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP. Alternatively, ask your web hosting provider to update your PHP.
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You can install the plugin from your WP admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins section and clicking the ”Install Now” button …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can visit the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your admin navigation menu …
The plugin settings section offers you a number of configuration options …
For example, you can choose a base currency from the ‘Base Currency’ drop-down menu. The default option is ‘United States Dollar – (USD)’ …
You can select which data provider you want to use from a dropdown menu. The default selection is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can also choose another provider, such as FoxRate or Google Finance …
Note: If you choose ‘Open Exchange Rates’, you will need an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can specify how often you want to update the currency exchange rates by choosing an option from the Update Rates drop-down menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which is an open-source library of Javascript code that allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (e.g. WP plugins).
If you have no reason to modify the jQuery settings, leave this option alone …
Configure the remainder of the settings and click Save Changes when done …
Once your plugin settings have been configured, you can add currency conversion to any WP page using widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, JPY, etc …) in this plugin.
Using Shortcodes
You can easily add currency conversion to posts, pages and widgets with no programming knowledge using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to posts and pages:
Let’s say that you retail your product online for a fixed amount (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to display your price converted into British pounds (GBP) on your page.
All you need to do is insert the shortcode below to your page content …
Note: You can also display pricing in dollars and cents (e.g. 165.49, 22.00, 400.00, etc …)
The example below shows how the shortcode should look after being inserted into a page …
When your post has been published, the currency conversion will display as shown below …
Using the above 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 like separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode appears when inserted into a page …
After publishing your content, your currency conversion will then appear as you can see below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the end of this tutorial to learn how to change the currency separator symbol within the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you would like to select a different base currency than the one selected as the default.
For example, if you have set your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your site targeted to non-European customers (like Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The screenshot below shows how the shortcode looks when inserted into your content …
After publishing your page or post, your converted currency will then appear as seen in the example below …
Widget
You can also add currency conversion to your website’s sidebar using the plugin’s widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, select Appearance > Widgets from your WordPress dashboard 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 example below (add currency codes separated by a comma), and click Save to update your settings …
The currency converter will now appear on your site’s sidebar menu with the settings 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 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 the forward slash as you can see in the example below …
If you change this symbol and resave your settings …
Your website visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
Integration With WordPress e-Commerce Platforms
As stated earlier, the Currencyr plugin integrates with various WordPress-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(image source: plugin website)
Congratulations! 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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