Markets and currencies
Configured against how you actually sell, with rounding rules that do not produce prices like 47.83.
SHOPIFY MARKETS AND REGIONAL ROLLOUTS
One storefront, every market you sell into
Shopify Markets setups, regional launches and the market-by-market rollouts that follow. The work behind stores selling across the US, UK, Australia, Malaysia and India.
IN SHORT
- Shopify Markets lets one storefront serve every country, with pricing, catalog and content varying per market.
- A separate store per country is only worth the maintenance when catalog, legal entity or fulfillment diverge.
- Domain structure and hreflang should be decided before launch, because retrofitting international URL structure is expensive.
- Local payment methods are the quiet conversion killer: the wrong method caps a region no matter how good the store is.
- Lucent Commerce has run this for Teabox on Shopify Markets, Moonglow across US and Australian markets, and Eat Cake Today in Malaysia.
What this covers
Four areas, each with its own page.
Shopify Markets
One storefront serving every market, with pricing, catalog and content handled per region. Teabox runs this way.
Regional Rollouts
Launch one market, prove it, then repeat. The sequence Moonglow followed from the US into Australia and beyond.
Local Market Launches
A dedicated storefront when a market needs its own, as with Teabox India and Eat Cake Today in Malaysia.
Marketplace Models
Multi-vendor stores where each vendor brings their own catalog, capacity and fulfillment window.
The decision that shapes everything else
One storefront or one per country. Almost every other international decision follows from this one, and most brands make it by accident: they open a second store for a market that did not need one, then discover they now maintain two themes, two app stacks and two sets of content forever.
The rule: share the store until something diverges. A different language and currency is not divergence. Markets handles that. A different legal entity, a materially different catalog, or fulfillment that works completely differently is divergence.
| Shopify Markets | A store per country | |
|---|---|---|
| Themes to maintain | One | One per store, or a shared deploy pipeline |
| Catalog | Shared, with per-market availability | Fully independent |
| Pricing and duties | Per market, duties at checkout | Per store |
| Apps | One stack | Paid for and configured per store |
| Admin and reporting | One admin, split by market | Separate, needs consolidating |
| Best when | Brand and catalog broadly shared | Own entity, catalog or fulfillment model |
How we set it up
Six stages. The first two are decisions; getting them wrong is what makes international expensive.
- 01
Decide the model
One storefront with Markets, or a store per country. This decision shapes cost, maintenance and team structure for years, so it gets made deliberately rather than by default.
- 02
Domain and URL structure
Subfolders, subdomains or country domains, with hreflang planned alongside. Decided before launch, because changing international URL structure later means redoing the SEO work twice.
- 03
Pricing and duties
Per-market pricing, rounding rules, and whether duties and import taxes are collected at checkout or left as a surprise on the doorstep. The second option costs you repeat customers.
- 04
Catalog and content
Which products are available where, and which content varies. Handled per market rather than by duplicating the store, which is what keeps maintenance sane.
- 05
Payments and logistics
Local payment methods assessed per region, shipping and returns modeled realistically. A market with no viable return path is a market that will generate complaints, not revenue.
- 06
Launch and learn
One market first, analytics split by market from day one, then the next launch uses what the first one taught rather than repeating it.
The three things brands get wrong
In the order they hurt
Duties as a surprise. A customer buys, the parcel arrives, and the courier asks for money before handing it over. That customer does not come back, and they tell people. Collecting duties at checkout costs a little conversion and saves the relationship.
Payment methods assumed. Card-only works in some markets and quietly caps you in others where local methods dominate. This is the single most common reason a market underperforms with no obvious cause.
URL structure retrofitted. Launching markets without deciding domain structure and hreflang means redoing it later, with redirects, lost equity and a period of search engines serving the wrong version to the wrong country.
What we set up
Domains and hreflang
Decided before launch, so international SEO is built in rather than retrofitted.
Local payments
Assessed per market rather than assumed, because the wrong method quietly caps a region.
Split analytics
Reporting separated by market from day one, so the next launch decision has evidence behind it.
Brands selling across borders with us
Moonglow
Moonglow sells jewelry set with the moon as it looked on a date that matters to you. Shoppers were stuck on how it works, so we built a moon-phase calculator that shows the real moon for any date, and a builder that turns that date, an engraving and a metal into a piece of jewelry. Sales are up more than 25%.
Eat Cake Today
Eat Cake Today is a funded Malaysian startup that sells cakes from many local bakers and kitchens and delivers them the same day. We built the Shopify storefront and the back end behind it: each vendor's capacity and each cake's making time decide which dates and times a shopper is offered, and each order goes straight to the kitchen and a rider. The service now covers three to four cities.
Teabox
Teabox is a design-led brand that delivers Indian teas and chai to the world. We launched its storefronts for the US, India and the UK on Shopify Markets, with product pages that show each tea's ingredients and how to brew it, built so the Teabox team can change the content and keep it on brand, and we launched its gift boxes.
Who we have done this for
Clients from the roster whose work this page describes. Each links to what we built.
Teabox
Teabox is a design-led brand that delivers Indian teas and chai to the world. We launched its storefronts for the US, India and the UK on Shopify Markets, with product pages that show each tea's ingredients and how to brew it, built so the Teabox team can change the content and keep it on brand, and we launched its gift boxes.
READ THE STORY →
Moonglow
Moonglow sells jewelry set with the moon as it looked on a date that matters to you. Shoppers were stuck on how it works, so we built a moon-phase calculator that shows the real moon for any date, and a builder that turns that date, an engraving and a metal into a piece of jewelry. Sales are up more than 25%.
READ THE STORY →
Eat Cake Today
Eat Cake Today is a funded Malaysian startup that sells cakes from many local bakers and kitchens and delivers them the same day. We built the Shopify storefront and the back end behind it: each vendor's capacity and each cake's making time decide which dates and times a shopper is offered, and each order goes straight to the kitchen and a rider. The service now covers three to four cities.
READ THE STORY →International questions
What is Shopify Markets?
A Shopify feature that lets a single storefront sell into multiple countries, with per-market pricing, currencies, catalog availability, domains and duty handling, rather than a separate store for each country.
Shopify Markets or a separate store per country?
Markets when the brand and catalog are broadly shared: one theme, one admin, far less maintenance. A separate store when a region needs its own catalog, legal entity or fulfillment model. Most brands over-buy here and end up maintaining stores they did not need.
Does Shopify handle duties and import taxes?
Yes, duties and import taxes can be collected at checkout, with more control available on Plus. Getting HS codes and country settings right is the work that determines whether it behaves correctly.
Do we need a local entity to sell in a new country?
Often not to begin with. Cross-border selling with duties handled at checkout gets most brands to the volume where a local entity starts to make commercial sense.
How does international SEO work on Shopify?
Through URL structure and hreflang. Each market needs a distinct URL (subfolder, subdomain or country domain) with hreflang telling search engines which version serves which audience. Decide this before launch; changing it afterwards means doing the work twice.
Related
Moving platform and going international together? See migration services. Shopify Markets is often the reason an enterprise platform is no longer necessary. Multi-region inventory usually needs ERP integration.
NEXT STEP
Markets review
We look at how your regions, currencies and catalog are split today and what Shopify Markets would collapse into one.
