Are you thinking about setting up an e-commerce website or making goods or services available for sale to a foreign audience? If so, then here’s a good idea: consider providing users with currency conversion.
Currency conversion lets your web visitors have the cost of a foreign currency transaction translated into their local currency at the point of sale. It also lets your visitors view the exact amount their credit card or PayPal account will be charged, displayed in their own home currency.
One advantage of adding currency conversion to your website is that it allows customers to see and understand pricing in foreign countries in their own home currency, making it it easier for purchasers to work out their costs and expenses.
If your site is built using WordPress, it’s quite simple to add currency conversion using a plugin to WordPress, allowing your prospective customers to quickly and easily determine the cost of your goods.
WordPress Free Currency Converting Plugin – Currencyr
Currencyr is a simple yet advanced, intuitive, easy-to-use and complete currency converter plugin with a visually attractive converter tooltip. It’s also free to install and use on your web site.
The Currencyr currency conversion WordPress plugin includes features such as:
- In-line converter
- Supports a number of exchange rates providers, like Yahoo!, Google and FoxRates
- WP-Cron task scheduler enabled
- Currency table and converter widget
- Can be integrated with a number of e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, Shop and Easy Digital Downloads.
- Automatic local currency determination
- Support for language translations
Note: The Currencyr plugin needs your server to be running PHP 5.3.0 or later. Do not install this plugin if you currently have an older version of PHP installed. Alternatively, ask your web host 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 installing and activating the plugin, you can get to the plugin’s settings by selecting Currencyr from your admin menu …
This takes you to the plugin settings screen …
For example, you can choose a base currency from a drop-down menu. The default base currency is ’USD’ …
Similarly, you can select which data provider you want to use from the drop-down menu in the Provider section. The default selection is ‘Yahoo! Finance’, but you can select another option, like European Central Bank, FoxRate, Google Finance or Open Exchange Rates …
Note: If you select ‘Open Exchange Rates’ as your provider, you will need to enter an API (Application Programming Interface) ID …
You can select how frequently you would like the exchange rates to be updated by choosing 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 (such as WordPress plugins).
Unless there is a reason to change the jQuery settings, you can just ignore this option …
Edit the rest of the plugin settings to suit your own needs and remember to click Save Changes when done …
When you have finished configuring your plugin settings, you can easily start adding currency conversion to WP posts or pages using shortcodes.
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section below to learn how to use currency codes (e.g. USD, AUD, JPY, etc …) with this plugin.
Currencyr Shortcodes
You can easily add currency conversion to WP pages, posts and widgets without editing your web templates using shortcodes.
Below are some examples of currency shortcodes that you can add to WP pages and posts:
Let’s say that you sell a product for a set price (e.g. $175) in US Dollars (USD), and you want to show the conversion amount in British pounds (GBP) on your sales page.
To display this information, just add the shortcode below into your post or page …
Note: You can also add amounts in dollars and cents (for example, 155.25, 197.00, 544.97, etc …)
The example below shows how the above shortcode looks after you have inserted it into a page or post …
After publishing your page or post, your converted currency will appear as seen in the example below …
Using the above example, let’s now display the same price into different currency formats.
To do this, use the shortcode below (add as many currency symbols as you want separated by vertical pipes) …
You can see how the shortcode appears when inserted into a post …
After publishing the page, your converted currency will then display as shown in the example below …
See the ‘Additional Plugin Notes’ section at the bottom of this tutorial to learn more about changing the currency separator symbol within this plugin.
Now, let’s suppose that you would like to use a different base currency than the one selected 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 visitors (like Australia or Canada), you can change the base currency using the following shortcode …
The example below shows how the above shortcode appears when inserted into a page …
After publishing your page or post, the converted currency will then appear as you can see below …
Widget
You can also insert a currency converter into your site’s sidebar using a widget.
To add currency conversion to your sidebar area, choose Appearance > Widgets in your WP admin menu …
In the Widgets > Available Widgets area find the ‘Currencyr’ widget and drag it to the ‘Active Widgets’ location …
Configure the widget options as shown in the example below (add any currency codes you would like to display on your widget separated by commas), and click Save to update your settings …
Your currency conversion tool will now appear on your site’s sidebar menu with the settings you have specified when configuring the widget …
Additional Plugin Notes
Here are some additional notes and useful information about using the 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 field.
So, for example, entering the default symbol “/” (forward slash) …
Separates all your prices using the forward slash as you can see in the example below …
If you change the symbol and resave your settings …
Your web site visitors will see the new symbol display as the currency separator …
Integration With e-Commerce Platforms
As described earlier, the plugin integrates 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 a currency converter to your WordPress web site.
To learn more about WordPress e-commerce plugins, see the tutorial below:
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