Selling in Portugal and France from your Shopify store

One store or several

For most brands, the simplest option is a single store with several markets. Shopify Markets is available on all plans and lets you group countries and assign them a language, a domain or subfolder, prices and shipping methods from a single admin, with one catalog and one inventory.

Opening separate stores per country only makes sense in specific cases: very different catalogs, independent teams or different companies behind each market. It multiplies the maintenance work, so it is not the default option.

Setting up markets in Shopify Markets

Under Settings > Markets you create one market for Portugal and another for France, or one that groups several countries if you want to treat them the same. When the language changes, it is best to keep them separate: that way each one has its own URL, default language and settings.

For the URL structure, the usual choice is subfolders of the main domain (for example /pt and /fr) or separate domains per country. Subfolders are easier to maintain and benefit from the authority your domain already has. Shopify adds hreflang tags automatically for each language and market, so Google knows which version to show each user.

• One market per country when the language changes
• Subfolders or separate domains per market
• Default language assigned to each market
• Review of which products are sold in each country

Translating the store properly

First you add the languages under Settings > Languages and assign them to each market. To translate, Shopify's free Translate & Adapt app lets you translate products, collections, pages and theme text, with machine translation as a starting point and manual editing afterwards.

Machine translation is a draft, not final copy. Product pages, shipping and returns text and the main pages should be reviewed by a native speaker. A French or Portuguese customer immediately notices machine-translated text, and that weighs on trust. Do not forget metafields, theme section text and confirmation emails: they often stay in Spanish by oversight.

Currency and pricing

Portugal and France use the euro, just like Spain, so you need no currency conversion or exchange-rate rounding. What you can decide is whether to keep the same prices in all three countries or adjust prices per market to absorb differences in shipping or local competition.

If you adjust prices, do it from the market settings rather than duplicating products. And make sure the way taxes are shown in the price is the one your advisor recommends for each country.

Shipping and returns

Create shipping zones for Portugal and France with realistic rates and delivery times. If your carrier serves those countries, check the terms for islands and territories with different rates, such as the Azores and Madeira in Portugal or Corsica in France, and the French overseas territories, which usually need separate handling.

In France, pickup point delivery is very widespread, so consider offering it. Real-time carrier-calculated rates are included on Advanced and Plus; on other plans the usual approach is flat, weight-based or price-based rates. For returns, explain in each language how to return an item, who pays for return shipping and which address to send it to.

• A dedicated shipping zone for each country
• Specific rates for islands and special territories
• Pickup points if your carrier offers them
• A clear, translated returns policy

Payments, taxes and legal requirements

Check which payment methods will be active in each market and that customers in each country find the options they expect. Review in your payment settings which methods appear for customers in each country, and place a test order using a Portuguese address and another using a French one.

Taxes raise the most questions when selling to consumers in other EU countries: VAT in the destination country, the One-Stop Shop (OSS), thresholds and invoicing. Shopify lets you configure taxes by country, but which setup applies depends on your situation, so decide it with your tax advisor. The same goes for legal policies and mandatory text in each language.

SEO and launching market by market

Each language version needs its own SEO work: titles, meta descriptions and alt text translated and written for how people search in that language, not translated literally. The words a Portuguese or French customer uses for your product may not be the direct translation of the ones you use in Spain.

Launch one market at a time if you can, measure how it responds and adjust before opening the next. Segment Shopify reports by country to see conversion, average order value and sales for each market separately, and compare them with Spain.