Are you planning to set up a WordPress-based e-commerce site, or sell products worldwide? If so, you may want to consider providing your prospects with the convenience of currency conversion on your site.
Currency conversion software lets your customers have the cost of a foreign currency amount translated to their local currency at the point of sale. It also lets your visitors and customers see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their home currency.
One benefit of adding currency conversion to your site is that it lets your customers view and understand prices in foreign countries in their own home currency, making it it easier for customers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If your site is powered by WordPress, it’s simple to add currency conversion using a plugin to your WordPress website, allowing your visitors to quickly determine the cost of your goods.
WP Free Currency Conversion Plugin – Currencyr
Currencyr is an intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a unique and attractive converter tooltip. And, it’s 100% free!
Useful plugin features include:
- In-line conversion tool
- Supports various exchange rates providers, like Google, Open Exchange Rates and FoxRates
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Widgetized currency table and converter
- Supports integration with a number of e-store plugins such as WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatically detects local currency
- Full translation support
Note: This plugin requires PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP on your server. Ask your web host to upgrade your PHP.
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You can install the currency conversion plugin from your WP admin area by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking the “Install” button …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your WP dashboard menu …
The plugin settings page provides several configuration options …
For example, you can select your base currency from a drop-down menu if you prefer to use a different currency than the default option ‘United States Dollar – (USD)’ …
Similarly, you can select any supported data provider from the dropdown menu in the Provider section. The default selection is Yahoo Finance, but you can also 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 often you want to update the currency exchange rates by specifying an option from the ‘Update Rates’ drop-down menu …
The 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 WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to edit the jQuery settings, just ignore this section …
Configure the rest of the plugin settings according to your preferences and click the ‘Save Changes’ button when finished …
After your plugin settings have been configured, you can start adding currency conversion to any of your WordPress site’s pages or posts using a shortcode.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, ZAR, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
Plugin Shortcodes
You can insert currency conversion into 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 posts and pages:
Let’s say that you are selling your product for a fixed price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to display your conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your product information page.
To do this, simply add the shortcode below to your post or page …
Note: You can also display pricing in dollars and cents (e.g. 16.95, 22.00, 149.00, etc …)
The example below shows how the shortcode looks when added to the page …
Once the post or page has been published, the currency conversion will display like this …
Using the same example, let’s now translate the same amount into different currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (you can add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode appears when you add it to a post …
Once the post has been published, your converted currency will then appear like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol with this plugin.
Now, suppose you want to specify a different base currency than the one set as your default.
For example, if you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your e-commerce pages targeted to non-European customers (e.g. Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
Here’s how the above shortcode looks when you add it to a post …
After publishing the page or post, your currency conversion will then appear as you can see in the example below …
Widget
You can also insert currency conversion into your website or blog’s sidebar using a widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets from the WP user admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to the Active Widgets location …
Configure the widget settings as shown below (add any currency codes you want to display on your widget separated by a comma), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
The currency conversion tool will now show on your website’s sidebar with the settings you have selected …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the Currencyr plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin allows you to specify the symbol to display as the currency separator when using several currencies.
You can select a different symbol in the ‘Multiple Separator’ settings section.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency values with the forward slash as shown below …
If you select another symbol and update your plugin settings …
Your web visitors will see the new symbol being used as the currency separator …
e-Commerce Software Integration
As mentioned earlier, the plugin integrates with a number of WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce and Shopp …
(image source: plugin website)
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add currency conversion to your e-commerce site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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