Do you plan to sell any products online internationally? If so, then it’s a great idea to consider providing users with currency conversion.
Currency conversion software tools allow your customers to have the price of a foreign currency amount converted into their home currency at the purchase or checkout phase. It also allows your visitors to see the exact amount their card or PayPal account will be charged, expressed in their local currency.
The obvious benefit of providing currency conversion on your website is that it lets visitors view and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own home currency, and makes it easier for purchasers to work out their costs and expenses.
Fortunately, if you are a WordPress user, it’s really easy and simple to add currency conversion using a plugin to your web site, allowing your visitors to easily perform currency conversions to determine the cost of your goods.
Currencyr – Currency Converting Plugin For WP Websites And Blogs
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter WordPress plugin with a beautiful and unique converter tooltip. It’s also free!
The Currencyr useful WP plugin features:
- Inline conversion tool
- Supports several exchange rates providers, such as Google and European Central Bank
- Support database cache driven for fast response
- Currency table and converter widget
- Supports integration with various e-store plugins like WooCommerce, WP-eCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency determination
- Translation support
Note: This plugin needs 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 upgrade your PHP server installation if required.
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You can install the plugin from your WordPress admin area by searching for “currencyr” in the Plugins area and clicking the ”Install Now” button …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, you can access the plugin’s settings page by selecting Currencyr from your dashboard menu …
The plugin settings area provides several configuration options …
For example, you can choose your base currency from a drop-down menu if you want something other than the default option ’US Dollar’ …
You can also specify which data provider you want to use from a dropdown menu. The default provider is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can choose one of the other options, such as European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you choose ‘Open Exchange Rates’, an API (Application Programming Interface) will be required …
You can specify how frequently you would like to update the currency exchange rates by choosing 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 (e.g. WP plugins).
If you have no reason to change the jQuery settings, leave them as they are …
Edit the rest of the plugin settings and don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button when done …
Once your plugin settings have been configured, you can start adding currency conversion to any of your WordPress pages and posts using widgets.
Refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn more about using currency codes (e.g. USD, GBP, ZAR, etc …) in the Currencyr plugin.
Shortcodes
You can add currency conversion to WordPress posts, pages and widgets without editing code using shortcodes.
Here are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to your WordPress pages and posts:
Let’s say that you sell your product for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you would like to display this conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your product sales page.
All you need to do is insert the shortcode below into your page content …
Note: You can also display pricing in dollars and cents (for example, 188.35, 97.00, 400.00, etc …)
The example below shows how the above shortcode looks when inserting it into the post or page …
Once your page has been published, the currency conversion will display as shown in the example below …
Using the above example, let’s now convert the same price into multiple currency formats.
To do this, use following shortcode (add as many currency symbols as you like by using vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode looks when inserted into a post …
Once the page or post has been published, your converted currency amounts will then appear like this …
refer to the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section further below to learn how to change the currency separator symbol in the Currencyr plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you want 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 visitors (e.g. Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The screenshot below shows how the above shortcode looks when added to your content …
Once your post has been published, your converted currency will then appear like this …
Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your website or blog’s sidebar using a widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar, choose Appearance > Widgets from the WP admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and add it to an ‘Active Widgets’ area …
Configure the widget options as shown in the example below (add currency codes separated by commas), and click Save to update your settings …
Your currency converter will now show on your website’s sidebar with the options you have specified when configuring the widget …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful information about using the Currencyr plugin.
Currency Separator
The Currencyr plugin lets you specify the symbol to display as the currency separator when using multiple currencies.
You can select a different symbol in the Multiple Separator settings field.
So, for example, using the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your currency values using the forward slash as shown below …
If you select another symbol and resave your settings …
Your website visitors will see the new symbol used as the currency separator …
e-Commerce Software Integration
As described earlier, the plugin can be integrated with various WP-compatible e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, Shopp, and Easy Digital Downloads …
(above image sourced from Currencyr plugin website)
Congratulations! Now you can go and easily add a currency converter to your e-commerce website.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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