Shopify Markets: how to sell in several countries from a single store

What a market is in Shopify

A market is a group of one or more countries or regions that share settings: language, currency, prices, product availability and domain. Your home country is your primary market, and from there you create additional markets, for example one for Portugal, another for France and another grouping several European Union countries.

The key decision is how to group them. If two countries share language, currency and prices, they can go in the same market. If you need different prices, content or assortment, separate them. Grouping too much is limiting; splitting too much multiplies the maintenance work.

Languages and translation with Translate & Adapt

First you add languages in your store settings and assign them to each market. Then you translate the content. Shopify's free Translate & Adapt app lets you translate products, collections, pages, blog posts, menus, theme text and notifications, and adapt content to a specific market even when it shares a language with another.

Machine translation is a starting point, but product pages, main categories and legal text deserve human review. The theme also has to be ready: text that is not in the code as translatable strings, such as images with text or content typed by hand into sections, will stay in a single language.

• Review the SEO titles and descriptions for each language, not just the visible content.
• Also translate email notifications and any checkout text you can edit.
• Avoid images with embedded text if you are going to sell in several languages.

Currencies and pricing per market

Each market can display its local currency. With Shopify Payments, shoppers see and pay in their own currency, and Shopify converts prices from the base price. You can also apply rounding rules so prices end consistently in each currency.

Beyond conversion, you can adjust prices per market with a percentage on the base price and, depending on your plan, set specific product prices in each market. This is useful when shipping costs, taxes or local competition justify different prices, or when you want to keep charm pricing in each currency.

Domains and subfolders

Each market needs its own URL so search engines and shoppers reach the right version. Shopify offers three options, and with all of them it automatically generates the hreflang tags that tell Google which version corresponds to each language and country.

• Subfolders, like yourstore.com/pt or yourstore.com/fr: the simplest option, and it concentrates the authority of the main domain.
• Subdomains, like pt.yourstore.com: they separate each version more, but are treated as distinct sites for SEO purposes.
• Country domains, like yourstore.pt: they signal a local presence, but require buying and maintaining each domain and building authority on each one.

Taxes, duties and shipping

Selling abroad has tax implications that depend on your situation and on each destination. Within the European Union, sales to consumers in other countries may require you to charge the destination country's VAT, and there is the One-Stop Shop (OSS) scheme to report it. Outside the EU, duties and import taxes come into play.

Shopify lets you set whether prices include taxes in each market and, in certain cases, calculate and collect duties at checkout so shoppers get no surprises when the package arrives. What you need to charge and report should be confirmed by your tax advisor; Shopify applies the settings, but the responsibility is yours.

Also review the shipping zones and rates for each market, the delivery times you display and your international returns policy. An international shopper needs to know before paying how long the order will take, who pays for returns and whether they will have to pay anything on delivery. That information should be on the product page, in the cart and on the legal pages in each language.

When to use expansion stores instead of Markets

Markets covers most international cases, but a separate store can be a better option when the differences go beyond language and price. With Shopify Plus you can create expansion stores for these cases without paying for additional plans.

• A country's catalog is very different from the rest.
• Each country has its own warehouse, logistics provider or legal entity.
• A local team runs its own store with its own apps and campaigns.
• You need a different design or shopping experience per country.

Common mistakes when going international

The most common mistake is activating markets without preparing the content: half translated languages, badly rounded prices or shipping that is not set up. Shoppers notice right away and the store loses credibility. Another frequent mistake is using automatic IP redirect apps that stop Google from crawling every version.

Launch one market at a time, measure and fix before opening the next. At Weblineo we build custom Shopify stores in code; in our Shopify development service we prepare the theme for multiple languages and markets from the start.