Do you plan to set up an e-commerce site, or sell goods and services online? If so, you should probably consider providing your prospects with a currency conversion feature.
Currency converting tools allow your web visitors to translate foreign currency pricing to their home currency at the purchase or checkout stage. It also lets visitors and customers view the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their local currency.
One advantage of displaying currency conversion is that it lets visitors 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 quite easy to add a currency converter to WordPress, allowing your site visitors to quickly determine the cost of your goods.
WordPress Free Currency Converting 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 completely free!
The Currencyr plugin includes features such as:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports several exchange rates providers, such as Yahoo!, Google, Open Exchange Rates, European Central Bank and FoxRates
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with a number of e-commerce plugins like WP-eCommerce & Easy Digital Downloads.
- Can determine local currency automatically
- Supports full translations
Important: This 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 on your server. Ask your web hosting provider to check and upgrade your PHP.
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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 the “Install Now” button …
After you have installed and activated the plugin, you can access the plugin’s settings by choosing Currencyr from your dashboard navigation menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings area …
For example, you can select a base currency from the Base Currency dropdown menu if you prefer a different currency than the default option ‘USD’ …
You can choose which data provider you want to use from the drop-down menu in the ‘Provider’ section. The default option is Yahoo Finance, but you can select one of the other options, like 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) will be required …
You can specify how frequently you would like the currency exchange rates to be updated by specifying an option from the Update Rates drop-down menu …
The plugin uses jQuery, which lets web developers add things like animation effects to web applications (like WordPress plugins).
If you have no reason to change the jQuery settings, just ignore this option …
Configure the rest of the settings to suit your own preferences and click the Save Changes button when you have configured this screen …
After you have finished configuring your settings, you can easily add currency conversion to any of your WP pages using widgets.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, NZD, JPY, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
Currencyr Shortcodes
You can easily add currency conversion to pages, posts and widgets without touching code 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 sell your products online for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would also like to display your amount converted into British pounds (GBP) on your page.
All you need to do is add the shortcode below into your page content …
Note: You can also display amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 6.95, 47.00, 544.97, etc …)
The screenshot below shows how your shortcode should look when inserting it into the post …
Once the post or page has been published, your converted currency amount will then appear as you can see in the example below …
Using the same example, let’s now display the same price into multiple currencies.
To do this, use the shortcode shown below (add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the above shortcode appears when you add it to a page …
After publishing the page or post, your currency conversion will then display as seen below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol in the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s say that you would like to specify a different base currency than the one you have selected as your default.
For example, if 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 …
You can see how the shortcode looks when you add it to a post …
Once the page or post has been published, the currency conversion will then appear as seen in the screenshot below …
Using The Currencyr Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your website’s sidebar area using a widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets from the WordPress admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets section find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to the ‘Active Widgets’ location …
Configure the widget settings as shown in the screenshot below (add any currency codes you would like to display on your widget separated by a comma), and click ‘Save’ to save your settings …
Your currency conversion tool will now appear on the sidebar with the options you have selected …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful 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 multiple currencies.
You can change the 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 the symbol and resave your settings …
Your website visitors will see the new symbol 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, WP-eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads …
(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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