In today’s world, creating an e-commerce store has become super easy with platforms like Shopify, Woocommerce, Wix, Magento, etc. However, there’s one thing that e-commerce store owners have often struggled with, i.e. expanding their e-commerce business to other countries. Understanding this issue, Shopify launched Shopify Markets to help merchants sell globally from their Shopify stores.

Shopify Markets makes managing international sales easier by taking care of currency changes, language differences, and local rules all in one place.

In this article, we will reflect on what Shopify Markets is, what are some of its key features, and how you can start selling globally with the Shopify Markets integration.

So let’s get started. 

What is Shopify Markets?

Shopify Markets is a feature offered by the Shopify platform that enables e-commerce businesses to enter new geographies and start selling their products globally. Launched in 2021, this feature helps Shopify merchants to ease the daunting process of international selling. 

It has a centralized feature set that tackles major issues like currency conversions, legal compliance, local payment methods, language translations, automated tax and duty collections, etc. It’s quick to enable and set up in any Shopify store.

Related Article: Shopify VAT – All you need to know

Key features of Shopify Markets

Now that we know what Shopify Markets is let’s look at the key features that it offers which allow Shopify store owners to tap into new markets. 

#1. Multicurrency – Offer products to customers in their local currency

Shopify Markets allows store owners to offer their international customers the convenience of viewing and paying for products in their local currency. This Shopify Multicurency feature is super important as every customer wants to purchase products in their local currency.

Shopify Markets automates this currency conversion process and reduces the manual work and errors associated with currency conversion. This automation ensures that the prices displayed are always accurate according to the latest exchange rates and ensures price consistency and seamless user experience irrespective of location.

#2. Language Localization – Store’s content is localized as per the user’s location

Users from different geographies would want to shop in their native language, but manually translating your store would require a lot of resources. Thankfully, Shopify Markets now takes care of this localization and automates the language translation process as per the user’s location.

With 3rd party apps available on the Shopify app store, one can quickly ensure that their Shopify store’s content is translated automatically as per the customer’s location.

#3. Domain Localization – Automatically adds region-specific slugs to the domain

When your store is operational across different geographies, it becomes crucial to ensure that both the customers and search engines can find and access the right language version of your store’s website. Shopify Markets automatically sorts this by creating unique URLs for each geographical version of your store when you publish a language.

For example: Let’s say your primary domain URL is store.com and you decide to add Spanish and Chinese versions on your site, then Shopify will automatically generate URLs for the like store.com/es for Spanish and store.com/zh for Chinese (Mandarin). 

#4. Payment Localization – Ability to offer local payment methods to customers

Shopify Markets goes a step ahead to personalize the user experience of the customer as per their location. It allows e-commerce store owners to offer local payment methods that are prominently used in their customers’ respective markets. However, only stores having Shopify payments enabled can process payments in the local currency of the customer. 

This customization ensures that the checkout process feels more personal and trustworthy and also increases the conversion rate of the store since customers are more likely to proceed with a purchase when they see familiar payment methods.

#5. Tax Management: Automating the Tax and Duty collections

The complex tax and duty rules are something that scares Shopify store owners the most, and while selling internationally, store owners must understand and adhere to different region’s policies. This is surely a big hassle if handled manually but again, Shopify Markets automates the entire process of tax and duty management.

At the checkout stage, Shopify shows all the taxes and duties, that are applicable as per the region’s rules. This ensures that customers are fully aware of the amount that they are paying and that merchants are able to manage their sales operations easily.

#6. Pricing Localization – Set Product prices as per the region’s currency

With Shopify Markets, store owners can also set different prices for products for different geographies. For instance, if you are selling in the USA and Canada, you can set prices in USD for customers in the United States and AUD prices for customers in Australia.

Shopify store owners can easily set these prices using a CSV file, which is super helpful if you have a lot of products and want to update their regional prices in bulk. 

How to set up Shopify Markets in your store?

#1. Sign in to your Shopify account with admin credentials.

#2. Go to ‘Settings’ from the left side navigation as displayed in the image below.

#3. Next, under the setting dashboard, head on to ‘Markets’ as shown below.

#4. Now you are inside the Shopify Markets dashboard. To add a market i.e. to add a new country where you want to sell products, click on ‘Add Market’ as depicted in the screenshot below.

#5. Select a country where you want to start selling and then click on ‘Add Market’ as shown below in the screenshot. 

#6. This will bring you the dashboard of your new Market setup and it will show ‘Active’ as depicted in the screenshot below. 

That’s it! Your Shopify Market is live and now you can control all the Language and Domains, Product Pricings, Taxes, Shipping Rules, and payments from the dashboard. 

What is the cost of setting up Shopify Markets?

Here are the pricing options for setting up Shopify Markets:

• Markets – The Markets plan is free to set up and fees are applied per transaction when using payment processing, currency conversions, or duty and import taxes. The currency conversion rate is 2.5%. Also, 0.85% for duties and import taxes,  if the store uses Shopify Payments, and 1.5% if the store uses some other payment provider. 
  
• Markets Pro – Markets Pro charges 6.5% per transaction and this fees includes payment processing, currency conversion, duty and import taxes, express shipping rates, and other features. 

Feature comparison – Shopify Markets and Market Pro

How to sell wholesale globally using Shopify?

If you are a wholesale business running on Shopify and you want to expand your business to multiple markets, you would need a platform to show wholesale prices and discounts, offer tiered pricing to special customers, implement a wholesale sign-up form, offer Net Payment Terms, and more.

To cater to your wholesale customers, you can either upgrade to a Shopify Plus plan or use existing 3rd party applications like the Wholesale Pricing Discount B2B. The app integrates seamlessly with Shopify Markets and offers a centralized platform for wholesalers on Shopify to expand their business globally. 

Summing up

Shopify Markets is a great feature by Shopify that opens opportunities for e-commerce entrepreneurs aiming to take their business global. Scaling e-commerce businesses to global markets has always been a challenge for store owners because of multiple currencies, languages, tax implications, payment options, and other rules and regulations. And Shopify Markets has addressed each of these challenges effectively by automating most of the regulatory things and providing a one-stop platform for e-commerce entrepreneurs to sell globally from their Shopify store.