Do you plan to sell any products online globally? If so, then you should think about providing users with currency conversion.
Currency conversion allows your prospects to have the price of an international currency transaction converted to their home currency at the point of sale. It also allows visitors to view the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their own local currency.
One great advantage of adding currency conversion to your website is that it allows customers to see and understand prices in foreign countries in their own local currency, and makes it easier for purchasers to calculate their costs and expenses.
If you are a WordPress user, it’s really simple to add a currency conversion plugin to WordPress, allowing your customers to easily calculate the cost of your goods.
Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. And, it’s 100% free!
The Currencyr currency conversion WordPress plugin features:
- Inline converter
- Supports several exchange rates providers, such as Google and European Central Bank
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with various e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, Shop and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can determine local currency automatically
- Translation support
Note: This plugin requires your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not use this plugin if you are running an older version of PHP. Ask your web host to check and upgrade your PHP server installation.
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You can install the plugin from your WP admin area by typing in “currencyr” into the Plugins search field and clicking “Install Now” …
After installing and activating the plugin, you can configure the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your dashboard navigation menu …
The plugin settings area provides many configuration options …
For example, you can select a base currency from a dropdown menu. The default option is ‘USD’ …
Similarly, you can choose any supported data provider from a dropdown menu. The default option is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can choose one of the other options, like FoxRate or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select ‘Open Exchange Rates’, an API (Application Programming Interface) is required …
You can specify how often you would like to update the exchange rates by selecting an option from the ‘Update Rates’ dropdown menu …
The Currencyr plugin uses jQuery, which allows web developers to add things like animation effects to web applications (like WordPress plugins).
Unless you have a reason to change the jQuery settings, you can simply ignore this option …
Edit the remainder of the plugin settings to suit your own preferences and click ‘Save Changes’ when you have finished configuring this screen …
Once your plugin settings have been configured, you can start adding currency conversion to your WordPress posts using a shortcode.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, JPY, etc …) with the Currencyr plugin.
Plugin Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to WordPress pages, posts and widgets without editing your web templates using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WordPress posts and pages:
Let’s say that you sell goods online for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to display this conversion amount in 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 insert amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 6.95, 97.00, 295.75, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how the above shortcode looks after you have inserted it into the page …
After publishing your information, your converted currency amount will appear as seen below …
Using the above example, let’s now translate the same price into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you like separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode looks when inserted into a post …
After publishing your post or page, your currency conversion will then appear as you can see in the example below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol within the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you want to specify a different base currency than the one selected as your default.
For example, say you have specified your default base currency as EUR and you have a section on your website targeted to visitors 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 information, the currency conversion will then display as seen in the example below …
Currencyr Widget
You can also add a currency converter to your site’s sidebar using the plugin’s widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets from your WP dashboard menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to the ‘Active Widgets’ area …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the example below (add any currency codes you would like displaying on your widget separated by a comma), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
The currency conversion tool will now display on your website’s sidebar with the settings you have specified …
Additional Plugin Notes
This section contains additional information about using the plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you specify a symbol of your choice 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) …
Displays your currency values separated by a forward slash as you can see in the example below …
If you change this symbol and resave your settings …
Your web visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
E-Commerce Integration
As mentioned earlier, the plugin integrates with various WP-compatible e-commerce plugins like WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(above image sourced from 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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