If you’ve been thinking about expanding your Shopify store beyond your home country, you’ve probably run into a problem: international selling is complicated. Different currencies, different languages, different tax rules, different shipping expectations — it’s a lot to manage.
That’s exactly what Shopify Markets was designed to solve.
Launched by Shopify as part of their push to help merchants go global, Markets is a centralized hub that lets you manage international expansion from a single dashboard — without needing separate stores for each country. In this guide, we’ll walk through everything you need to know to set it up and use it effectively.
What Is Shopify Markets?
Shopify Markets is a cross-border commerce feature built directly into Shopify. It allows you to create customized shopping experiences for different regions of the world, all from your existing store.
With Markets, you can:
- Show prices in local currencies and adjust them by region
- Translate your storefront content into different languages
- Use country-specific domains or subfolders (e.g.,
yourstore.com/frfor France) - Set up local payment methods popular in specific countries
- Manage international duties and import taxes
- Create region-specific product catalogs or pricing
The key advantage over the old approach (running separate Shopify stores for each country) is that everything lives in one place. One inventory, one admin, one set of analytics — just different front-end experiences for different markets.
Who Should Use Shopify Markets?
Shopify Markets makes sense if:
- You’re already getting traffic or orders from outside your home country
- You want to test a new market without spinning up an entirely new store
- You sell products with global appeal (fashion, beauty, electronics, consumables, etc.)
- You want to improve conversion rates for international visitors by showing local prices and languages
It’s available on all Shopify plans, though some advanced features — like local domains and advanced duties management — require Shopify or Advanced Shopify. Shopify Plus merchants get the most functionality, including the ability to create truly distinct experiences per market.
How to Set Up Shopify Markets: Step by Step
Step 1: Access Shopify Markets
From your Shopify admin, go to Settings → Markets. You’ll see your primary market (usually your home country) already listed, along with a button to add new markets.
Step 2: Create a New Market
Click Add market and either select individual countries or group multiple countries into a single market (for example, a “Southeast Asia” market covering Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam).
Grouping makes sense when countries share similar price expectations, shipping costs, or language needs. Keep markets separate when you want very different experiences per country.
Step 3: Set Up Local Currency
Once your market is created, you can enable local currency pricing under Markets → [Your Market] → Currency and pricing.
Shopify handles the exchange rate conversion automatically based on live rates. However, you can also set fixed prices for specific markets if you want to control what customers see precisely. This is useful when exchange rate fluctuations would make your prices inconsistent or when you want to set psychologically compelling price points (e.g., €49 instead of €48.73).
Tip: Enable “Round prices” in your market settings to clean up converted prices. Nobody wants to see a product priced at $23.47 — rounded pricing looks more professional and intentional.
Step 4: Add Language Support
To show your store in a different language, go to Settings → Languages and install a translated language. You can either use Shopify’s auto-translation (powered by third-party translation services like Weglot or Langify) or manually enter your own translations for full control.
Once a language is installed, link it to your market under Markets → [Your Market] → Language.
A few things worth noting here:
- Product descriptions, page content, and navigation can all be translated
- Not everything translates automatically — custom app content and some theme elements may need manual attention
- For SEO, using dedicated subfolders (
yourstore.com/de) or subdomains (de.yourstore.com) per language is better than auto-detecting and redirecting users
Step 5: Configure Domains (Optional but Recommended)
Under Markets → [Your Market] → Domains and languages, you can assign a specific URL structure for each market.
Your options are:
- Subfolder:
yourstore.com/fr— easiest to set up, good for most merchants - Subdomain:
fr.yourstore.com— slightly more flexibility, requires DNS configuration - Country TLD:
yourstore.fr— strongest local trust signal, but requires purchasing and managing separate domains
For most stores starting out with international selling, subfolders are the pragmatic choice. Country TLDs make more sense once you’ve validated that a specific market generates meaningful revenue.
Step 6: Handle Duties and Import Taxes
This is the part that trips up most merchants selling internationally. When someone in the EU orders from a US store, or a customer in Australia buys from the UK, there are import duties and taxes involved — and if the customer gets an unexpected bill at delivery, they’ll either refuse the package or leave a negative review.
Under Markets → [Your Market] → Duties and import taxes, you can enable Collect duties at checkout. Shopify will calculate the applicable duties based on the product’s HS (Harmonized System) code and the destination country, then add them to the order total so there are no surprises.
To use this feature, you’ll need to add HS codes to your products. This takes a bit of time upfront but is worth it — duty transparency dramatically improves the international customer experience and reduces returns.
Step 7: Set Up Local Payment Methods
Different markets have strong preferences for specific payment methods. Germany relies heavily on SEPA and Klarna. The Netherlands uses iDEAL. Brazil’s market is shaped by Boleto Bancário. Japan leans toward convenience store payments.
Under Settings → Payments, you can enable additional payment providers for specific markets. Shopify Payments supports local payment methods in many countries. For markets where Shopify Payments isn’t available, Shopify supports integrating third-party payment gateways.
The rule of thumb: if a payment method is used by more than 30% of consumers in a target market, it’s worth supporting.
Common Mistakes to Avoid with Shopify Markets
Not setting fixed prices for high-volatility currency pairs. If you’re selling in currencies that fluctuate significantly against yours, live rate conversion can make your pricing look inconsistent day to day. Consider setting fixed regional prices for your most important markets.
Ignoring the shipping side. Shopify Markets handles the storefront experience, but you still need to configure shipping rates for international destinations under Settings → Shipping and delivery. Make sure you’re charging the right amounts and setting realistic delivery time estimates.
Skipping the legal pages. Different countries have different requirements for return policies, privacy notices, and terms of service. This isn’t just best practice — in markets like the EU, it’s a legal requirement. Create market-specific pages for your main markets and link them in your footer.
Forgetting to test the experience. Before you launch a new market, use a VPN to simulate being in that country and walk through the entire purchase process. Look at the currency, the language, the payment options, the shipping rates, and the checkout. It only takes a few minutes and often surfaces issues that aren’t visible from the admin side.
Shopify Markets vs. Shopify Plus Markets Pro
If you’re on Shopify Plus, you have access to Markets Pro, which goes a step further by offering:
- Guaranteed landed costs (Shopify takes on the compliance risk for duties)
- Local entity for checkout in key markets, making the transaction legally local
- More advanced catalog management per market
Markets Pro is a managed service rather than a self-serve feature, so it comes with a different pricing structure. For high-volume international sellers, the compliance protection and conversion lift from local checkout can make it well worth it.
Is Shopify Markets Right for You?
If you’re doing even modest sales outside your home country, setting up Shopify Markets is one of the highest-ROI things you can do this quarter. Showing shoppers prices in their local currency alone can increase conversion rates by 10–30% for international visitors.
Start small — pick one or two markets where you already see traffic or orders, set up local currency and a translated language, and measure the impact over 60 days. The data will tell you whether to invest further.
International expansion doesn’t have to be a massive project. With Shopify Markets, the technical barriers have been significantly lowered — which means the main thing standing between your store and a global customer base is just getting started.
Have questions about setting up your Shopify store for international sales? Browse our Shopify Tutorials section for more step-by-step guides.
