Shopify Markets: How to Sell Internationally from Your Shopify Store

Shopify Markets is a built-in suite of international selling tools that lets you manage multiple markets from a single Shopify store. Instead of creating separate stores for each country, setting up different payment processors, or managing multiple apps for currency conversion and duties calculation, Shopify Markets centralises all of it into one dashboard. You define which countries or regions you want to sell to, set localised pricing, configure duties and tax collection, and Shopify handles the rest.

For Shopify merchants looking to expand beyond their home market, Markets removes the technical complexity that has historically made international selling prohibitively difficult for small and mid-sized businesses.

Agency insight: Before Shopify Markets, merchants who wanted to sell internationally typically needed multiple stores, separate apps for currency conversion and duties, and significant developer time to manage the setup. We have helped merchants consolidate from three or four separate international stores into a single store using Markets, reducing their operational overhead significantly while improving the customer experience in every market.

Key Takeaways

• Shopify Markets lets you sell to multiple countries from a single Shopify store, with no need for separate stores per market
• Localised pricing, currencies, languages, duties, and taxes are all managed from one dashboard
• Markets automatically handles currency conversion, duties calculation at checkout, and local payment methods
• International SEO benefits from Markets' built-in hreflang tags, subfolders, and localised domains
• Shopify Markets Pro (powered by Global-e) extends functionality for high-volume international sellers with managed compliance and cross-border logistics

Table of Contents

• What Is Shopify Markets?
• How Shopify Markets Works
• Multi-Currency and Localised Pricing
• Duties, Taxes, and Compliance
• Languages and Translation
• Domains and International SEO
• Local Payment Methods
• Shopify Markets Pro
• How to Set Up Shopify Markets
• When to Use Markets vs Separate Stores
• Why Matters Perspective
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Final Thoughts

What Is Shopify Markets?

Shopify Markets is a centralised international commerce hub built directly into your Shopify admin. It allows you to create and manage distinct "markets" (countries or groups of countries) from a single store, each with its own currency, language, pricing, domain or subfolder, duties and tax settings, and product availability.

Before Markets, international selling on Shopify typically required one of two approaches: either building separate Shopify stores for each country (expensive, operationally complex, and difficult to maintain) or using a patchwork of third-party apps for currency conversion, translation, and duties calculation (unreliable and often conflicting). Markets replaces both approaches with a native, integrated solution.

Markets is included on all Shopify plans at no additional cost for its core features. Advanced functionality is available through Shopify Markets Pro, which we cover separately below.

How Shopify Markets Works

The core concept is straightforward. In your Shopify admin under Settings > Markets, you define the markets you want to sell to. A market can be a single country (for example, France) or a group of countries (for example, the European Union). For each market, you configure:

• Currency: which currency to display and charge in
• Language: which language to display your store in (requires a translation app or manual translation)
• Pricing: whether to use automatic currency conversion or set manual market-specific prices
• Duties and taxes: whether to collect duties and import taxes at checkout or let the customer pay on delivery
• Domain: whether to use a subfolder (yourstore.com/fr), a subdomain (fr.yourstore.com), or a country-specific domain (yourstore.fr)
• Product availability: which products are available in each market (useful for region-specific ranges or regulatory restrictions)

Once configured, Shopify automatically detects a visitor's location and presents them with the appropriate currency, language, and pricing for their market. Customers see prices in their local currency, pay duties upfront at checkout if configured, and experience a fully localised shopping experience without the merchant needing to run multiple stores.

Multi-Currency and Localised Pricing

Shopify Markets supports automatic currency conversion using live exchange rates managed by Shopify. When a customer from France visits your store, they automatically see prices in euros. A customer from the US sees prices in dollars. The conversion happens in real time and the merchant receives payment in their base currency.

For merchants who want more control, Markets also supports manual pricing per market. This means you can set specific prices for specific markets rather than relying on automatic conversion. This is particularly useful when:

• Exchange rate fluctuations would make automatic pricing unpredictable for customers
• You want to set market-specific pricing strategies (for example, pricing slightly higher in markets with higher willingness to pay)
• Regulatory requirements in certain markets affect what you can charge
• You want to offer rounded prices (£19.99 rather than £19.47) in each currency

Shopify also allows percentage-based price adjustments per market. For example, you can set all prices in a specific market to be 10% higher than your base prices to account for additional shipping, duties, or operational costs.

Duties, Taxes, and Compliance

International duties and taxes are the single biggest source of complexity and customer frustration in cross-border ecommerce. A customer who sees a £30 product at checkout but then receives a £12 customs charge on delivery is unlikely to buy from that store again. Shopify Markets addresses this by allowing merchants to collect estimated duties and import taxes at checkout, so customers see the full landed cost before they pay.

How duties collection works in Markets:

• Shopify calculates estimated duties and taxes based on the product's HS (Harmonized System) tariff code, the destination country's duty rates, and the order value
• The estimated duties are displayed at checkout as a separate line item
• The customer pays the full amount including duties
• The merchant remits the duties to the carrier or customs authority

This "delivered duty paid" (DDP) approach significantly reduces cart abandonment in international orders and eliminates the negative customer experience of unexpected charges on delivery.

Why Matters perspective: duties collection at checkout is the single feature of Shopify Markets that has the greatest commercial impact. The merchants we work with who enable it consistently see higher international conversion rates and fewer customer service complaints about unexpected delivery charges. If you are selling internationally without collecting duties at checkout, this should be your first priority. For more on optimising your checkout for conversions, see our guide on how to increase Shopify conversions.

Languages and Translation

Shopify Markets supports multiple languages per store. When a customer visits from a market where you have configured a different language, the store automatically displays in that language, including product titles, descriptions, navigation, checkout, and notification emails.

Translation can be handled in two ways:

Shopify Translate & Adapt app: Shopify's own free translation app provides AI-generated translations that you can review and edit. It covers product content, theme content, and checkout.

Third-party translation apps: Apps like Weglot and Langify offer more advanced translation management, including professional human translation, visual editing, and translation memory for consistency across large catalogues.

For best results, AI-generated translations should always be reviewed by a native speaker before going live. Machine translation has improved dramatically, but product descriptions and brand messaging still benefit from human refinement, particularly for markets where nuance and tone matter commercially.

Domains and International SEO

How you structure your international URLs has a direct impact on SEO performance in each market. Shopify Markets supports three domain strategies:

For most Shopify merchants, subfolders are the recommended approach because all domain authority remains consolidated on a single domain. Google receives clear geo-targeting signals through the subfolder structure and the hreflang tags that Shopify Markets generates automatically.

Hreflang tags are HTML tags that tell Google which version of a page is intended for which language and region. Without them, Google may serve the wrong version of your pages to international visitors. Shopify Markets generates hreflang tags automatically for every market you configure, which eliminates one of the most technically complex aspects of international SEO.

Why Matters perspective: do not use automatic IP-based redirects that force visitors to a specific market version of your store based on their location. This is a common mistake that blocks search engine crawlers from accessing different market versions of your pages, which prevents proper indexing. Shopify Markets uses geolocation detection to suggest the appropriate market to the visitor but does not force a redirect, which is the correct approach for both user experience and SEO. For a comprehensive guide to Shopify SEO including international considerations, see our Shopify SEO guide.

Local Payment Methods

Payment preferences vary significantly by country. A Dutch customer expects to pay with iDEAL. A German customer expects Klarna or Sofort. A Brazilian customer expects Boleto. Offering only card payments and PayPal in these markets means losing sales to competitors who offer local payment methods.

Shopify Markets, combined with Shopify Payments, supports local payment methods in many markets automatically. When a customer visits from a supported country, the relevant local payment options appear at checkout without the merchant needing to configure anything beyond enabling the market.

This is one of the less visible but commercially significant benefits of Markets. Customers who see their preferred payment method at checkout convert at measurably higher rates than those who are presented only with card payment options.

Shopify Markets Pro

Shopify Markets Pro is an advanced tier of Markets powered by Global-e, designed for merchants with significant international volume. It extends the core Markets functionality with:

• Managed duties and tax compliance: Global-e handles the collection and remittance of duties and taxes on your behalf, reducing compliance risk
• Guaranteed landed cost accuracy: the duties displayed at checkout are guaranteed accurate, with Global-e absorbing any discrepancy
• Cross-border logistics optimisation: improved shipping rates and carrier selection for international orders
• Additional local payment methods: beyond what standard Markets supports
• Regulatory compliance management: handling country-specific regulations around product restrictions, labelling requirements, and consumer protection

Markets Pro is not necessary for most merchants starting out with international selling. It becomes valuable when international revenue reaches a level where the operational complexity of managing duties, compliance, and logistics across many markets justifies the additional cost. Markets Pro is available on Shopify Plus and select Advanced plans.

How to Set Up Shopify Markets

Setting up Markets is straightforward and can be completed in an afternoon for most stores:

Step 1: Go to Settings > Markets in your Shopify admin. Your primary market (typically your home country) is already configured.

Step 2: Click "Add market" and select the country or region you want to sell to. You can add individual countries or predefined regions.

Step 3: Configure the currency for the new market. Choose between automatic conversion or manual pricing.

Step 4: Set up duties and taxes. Enable duty collection at checkout if you want customers to see the full landed cost before paying.

Step 5: Configure the domain strategy (subfolder, subdomain, or country domain).

Step 6: Add translations if selling in a language other than your store's default. Install Shopify Translate & Adapt or a third-party translation app.

Step 7: Review product availability. If certain products are not available in specific markets (due to regulations, shipping restrictions, or strategic decisions), exclude them from those markets.

Step 8: Test the experience by visiting your store with a VPN set to the target country, or by using Shopify's market preview feature. Check that currencies, duties, languages, and payment methods display correctly.

When to Use Markets vs Separate Stores

Shopify Markets is the right choice for the majority of merchants who want to sell internationally. However, there are situations where separate stores may still be preferable:

Use Shopify Markets when:

• You sell the same or similar product range across markets
• You want centralised inventory, order, and customer management
• You want a single admin to manage all markets
• You are expanding into international markets for the first time
• Your international operations do not require entirely separate branding or fulfilment per country

Consider separate stores when:

• You operate entirely different brands in different markets
• You have separate fulfilment operations in each country with no inventory overlap
• Regulatory requirements in a specific market demand a completely independent setup
• You need market-specific Shopify apps that conflict with each other when installed on the same store

For most merchants, Markets provides everything needed for international expansion. Separate stores should only be considered when there is a specific operational reason that Markets cannot accommodate.

Why Matters Perspective

International selling used to require a level of technical and operational complexity that put it out of reach for most small and mid-sized Shopify merchants. Shopify Markets has changed that fundamentally. The ability to manage multiple currencies, languages, duties, and domain structures from a single store, with automatic hreflang tags and localised checkout, removes the majority of barriers that previously existed.

The merchants we work with who expand internationally most successfully are those who start with one or two new markets, get the duties and currency setup right, monitor conversion rates per market, and then expand further based on data rather than assumption. Starting with every country at once typically leads to operational overwhelm and diluted marketing focus.

If you are considering international expansion for your Shopify store, email us. We can help you identify which markets represent the strongest opportunity, configure Markets correctly, and ensure your international SEO is set up to capture organic traffic in every market you enter.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Shopify Markets free? The core Shopify Markets features (multi-currency, market configuration, subfolders, hreflang tags, basic duties estimation) are included on all Shopify plans at no additional cost. Shopify Markets Pro, which adds managed compliance, guaranteed landed costs, and advanced logistics through Global-e, is a paid add-on available on Shopify Plus and select Advanced plans.

Do I need Shopify Markets to sell internationally? You can sell internationally without Markets by simply accepting orders from other countries and shipping to them. However, without Markets you cannot display localised currencies, collect duties at checkout, manage market-specific pricing, generate hreflang tags automatically, or offer local payment methods. Markets makes international selling significantly more effective and customer-friendly.

Does Shopify Markets handle translation? Markets supports multiple languages per store but does not provide translations itself. You need either Shopify's free Translate & Adapt app or a third-party translation app like Weglot to translate your store content. AI-generated translations should be reviewed by a native speaker before going live.

How does Shopify Markets affect SEO? Markets automatically generates hreflang tags for each market, creates localised URL structures (subfolders, subdomains, or country domains), and serves the appropriate language and currency version to visitors based on their location. This is exactly what Google needs to properly index and rank your international pages. For a full international SEO guide, see our Shopify SEO guide.

Should I use subfolders, subdomains, or country domains? For most merchants, subfolders (yourstore.com/fr/) are the recommended approach because all domain authority stays consolidated on a single domain. Country domains (yourstore.fr) provide the strongest geo-targeting signal but require building authority for each domain independently. Subdomains are generally the least recommended option as Google may treat them as separate sites.

What is the difference between Shopify Markets and Shopify Markets Pro? Shopify Markets is the core international selling feature included on all plans. Markets Pro is a premium add-on powered by Global-e that adds managed duties and tax compliance, guaranteed landed cost accuracy, advanced logistics, and additional local payment methods. Markets Pro is designed for high-volume international sellers who need managed compliance.

Can I set different prices for different countries? Yes. Shopify Markets supports both automatic currency conversion (using live exchange rates) and manual market-specific pricing. You can also apply percentage-based adjustments to account for additional costs in specific markets.

Final Thoughts

Shopify Markets has made international selling accessible to Shopify merchants of every size. The ability to manage multiple currencies, languages, duties, domains, and payment methods from a single store eliminates the operational complexity that previously required multiple stores or a patchwork of third-party apps.

If your products have international demand and you are not yet selling outside your home market, Markets provides a straightforward path to testing and scaling international sales without the infrastructure investment that cross-border commerce traditionally required.

Start with one or two markets where you have the strongest product-market fit, configure duties collection at checkout to eliminate surprise charges, and expand based on performance data. International expansion does not need to be a leap of faith. With Markets, it can be a measured, data-driven progression.

If you need help configuring Shopify Markets or developing an international growth strategy for your store, email us. We would be happy to help.

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