Loading tutorials…
Loading tutorials…
Most Plus brands rush into expansion stores for multi-country sales when Markets does it on one store. Same inventory, same customer database, same admin — with per-country pricing, currency, and tax. Here's the right setup.
Who this is forShopify Plus brands selling internationally or planning to. Especially relevant if you currently use expansion stores for multi-country and want to consolidate.
What you'll need
Step 1
Markets handles multi-country on ONE store. Expansion stores are separate stores with separate inventory/customers. 80% of brands should use Markets.
Use Markets when: you have one product catalog (same SKUs sold globally), one inventory pool (or one per region with native multi-location), one customer database, and one team managing global ops.
Use expansion stores when: you have a genuinely separate brand per country, separate inventory pools that don't reconcile, separate teams that need fully isolated admin access, or tax-entity-level separation (different LLC per country).
Most DTC brands going international should use Markets first. Reconsider expansion stores only after you've felt Markets' limits firsthand (typically at $20M+ ARR).
If you currently use expansion stores: plan a consolidation. Pick a 'home' market (highest-revenue country), make it the primary on the original store, configure other countries as Markets, migrate customers and orders.
Step 2
Settings → Markets → Primary market. This is your default — usually your home country (US for most US-based brands).
Shopify Admin → Settings → Markets. The primary market is auto-set based on your store's currency and location. Confirm: name, region, currency, primary domain.
Set the language. Markets supports multiple languages per Market (e.g., US Market = English, French for Quebec). Translation requires Shopify Translate & Adapt or a third-party app (Langify, Weglot).
Set the pricing strategy: 'Same prices as primary market' (default), 'Different prices' (manual price overrides), or 'Auto-adjust by exchange rate' (Shopify pulls daily FX).
Confirm shipping: which carriers ship to this region? Real-time rates from carrier accounts, or flat rates? Test with a real address.
Save. The primary market is live by default.
Step 3
Settings → Markets → 'Add market.' Choose region/country, currency, language, domain strategy.
Click 'Add market.' Name it (e.g., 'European Union' or 'UK'). Add countries — Markets supports country grouping (one Market = multiple countries).
Set currency: 'Local currency' (GBP for UK, EUR for EU) or 'Same as primary' (USD globally). Local is preferred for higher CR.
Set price adjustments: percentage markup/markdown vs primary market, or upload per-product international pricing via CSV. Common pattern: +10% in EU, +15% in UK to absorb VAT.
Set domain: 'Subfolder' (yourstore.com/en-gb), 'Subdomain' (uk.yourstore.com), or 'Top-level domain' (yourstore.co.uk). Top-level domains require Shopify Plus.
For SEO: Markets auto-creates hreflang tags. Top-level domains rank best regionally; subfolders rank well too. Subdomains are weakest.
Save. The market goes live — shoppers visiting from that country see the local pricing/currency/language.
Step 4
Settings → Shipping and delivery → set up per-country rates. Settings → Taxes → register and configure per-country tax.
Shipping: create a 'Shipping zone' per region. For EU, list all included countries; set carrier-calculated or flat rates per zone.
If using real-time carrier rates (UPS, FedEx, DHL): connect carrier accounts in Settings → Shipping. Shopify Plus includes real-time third-party rates.
Tax: per-country registration. UK = VAT (register at HMRC, set up VAT collection in Shopify), EU = OSS (One-Stop Shop, register once for all EU countries), US = sales tax per state (Shopify Tax or third-party like TaxJar/Avalara).
Shopify Tax auto-collects most major regions. For complex tax setups (digital goods VAT, B2B reverse charge), supplement with an external tax engine.
Test: cart a product from a UK address, confirm VAT is added and the price shows GBP. Repeat for EU, US, AU.
Step 5
Some products only sell in certain countries. Some content (legal pages, promos) varies. Configure per-market.
Per-product availability: open a product → Markets section → choose which Markets it's available in. Useful for region-locked products (e.g., alcohol products only in legal-age markets).
Per-market pricing: same product page → Pricing → International pricing. Override price per market. Bulk-edit via CSV for many products.
Per-market collections: Catalogs → Catalogs → create a 'EU Catalog' containing only EU-legal products. Assign to the EU market.
Per-market content: Themes → Customize → switch market in the top bar to edit market-specific theme content (e.g., 'Free EU shipping' banner only on the EU market).
Per-market legal pages: Settings → Policies → Edit per market (privacy policy, refund policy, terms) — required for GDPR in EU, CCPA in California.
Step 6
Use a VPN or browser geolocation override to test each market. Verify pricing, currency, shipping, tax, and checkout flow.
Use a VPN (or Chrome DevTools → Sensors → Location override) to test each market. Set your location to the target country.
Visit the storefront. Confirm: correct domain/subfolder, correct currency, correct language, correct VAT-inclusive pricing.
Add a product to cart. Confirm: correct shipping rates appear for the country, correct tax (VAT, etc.).
Proceed to checkout. Test with a real card if possible (refund yourself after). Confirm: correct payment methods available (Klarna for EU, Afterpay for AU, etc.), correct order email language, correct order shows in admin with the market tagged.
Run this for every market. Document anomalies: a missing payment method, wrong currency in a thank-you email, broken hreflang. Fix before promoting Markets to customers.
Step 7
Each market should have its own Google Ads + Meta Ads campaigns with currency-appropriate targets. Analytics should segment by market.
Google Ads: create per-country campaigns with location targeting (UK only, EU country list). Use the corresponding Shopify market's currency in the campaign settings.
Meta Ads: ad sets with country-specific targeting. Use the relevant Shopify domain (subfolder/subdomain/TLD) in ad destination URLs.
Klaviyo (or your ESP): create per-market lists or segments. Send currency-appropriate email content (UK shoppers see £, EU see €).
GA4: market is a custom dimension. Configure GA4 to push the market slug on every event so reports can segment by market.
Test attribution: run a small paid ad in one market for 14 days. Confirm orders attributable to that ad appear in Shopify Analytics → Sales attribution.
Common mistakes
Using expansion stores when Markets would work
What goes wrong: 5 expansion stores for 5 countries = 5 separate admin panels, 5 sets of apps to maintain, 5 customer databases that don't sync. Operational overhead: 20+ hours/week at $2-5M ARR. Inventory reconciliation: nightmare. App billing: 5x.
How to avoid: Use Markets unless you have a strict reason for separate stores (different brand, different tax entity, different team). Plan an expansion-store-to-Markets consolidation if currently overbuilt.
Markets without VAT-inclusive pricing in EU
What goes wrong: EU shoppers see pre-VAT prices on the storefront, get hit with VAT at checkout. CR drops 20-30% on EU traffic. Cart abandonment from VAT shock is the #1 EU friction point.
How to avoid: Settings → Taxes → enable "All prices include tax" for EU market. Display prices VAT-inclusive on the storefront. VAT is removed for B2B reverse-charge customers separately.
No hreflang or wrong domain strategy
What goes wrong: Without hreflang tags, Google can't tell which market page to show which country. UK shoppers land on US pages with USD pricing. Bounce rate spikes 30-50% on international traffic.
How to avoid: Markets auto-creates hreflang. Verify in HTML source. For best SEO: top-level domains (yourstore.co.uk) outperform subfolders, which outperform subdomains. TLDs require Plus.
Missing per-market payment methods
What goes wrong: EU shoppers expect Klarna and SEPA. AU shoppers expect Afterpay. UK shoppers expect Clearpay. Stores that only offer Stripe + PayPal in international markets see 15-25% lower CR vs local-payment-method-enabled stores.
How to avoid: Per-market: enable region-appropriate payment methods. Shopify Payments handles most. For additional methods, use Klarna app, Afterpay app, Mollie, etc.
One inventory pool for all markets without fulfillment thinking
What goes wrong: All orders ship from US warehouse. EU customers pay $20+ in shipping and wait 7-14 days. CR is low, returns are high. Brands lose 30-50% of EU potential revenue.
How to avoid: Plan fulfillment per market. Either: use Shopify multi-location with regional 3PLs (EU warehouse, AU warehouse) or focus paid ads on countries you can ship from competitively.
Forgetting to translate the storefront
What goes wrong: EU shoppers in France/Germany/Spain see English copy. CR is 40-50% lower than for English-speaking EU customers (UK, Ireland). Brands attribute it to 'EU is hard' when actually it's just no localization.
How to avoid: Install Shopify Translate & Adapt (free for Plus) or a third-party translation app (Langify, Weglot). Translate at least: product titles, descriptions, collection pages, checkout, and emails. Use professional translators for the top 50 SKUs.
Recap
Done — what's next
How to set up a Shopify Plus account
Read the next tutorial
Hand it off
Markets is the cheapest way to go international and the most-misconfigured. Brands lose 20-40% of international CR to fixable issues (VAT-exclusive pricing, missing local payment methods, no translation). A Shopify Plus international specialist at $14-16/hr can configure full Markets setup in 2-3 weeks — typically $1,000-2,000 total.
See specialist rates
Markets = one store, multiple countries, shared inventory/customers/admin. Expansion stores = multiple separate stores with separate everything. Markets is simpler and recommended for 80% of multi-country use cases. Expansion stores are for genuinely separate businesses.
Recommended for best SEO. Top-level domains (yourstore.co.uk, yourstore.de) rank best regionally and require Plus. Subfolders (yourstore.com/en-gb) work well too and are easier to manage. Subdomains (uk.yourstore.com) are weakest for SEO.
Register for VAT in countries where you exceed thresholds (UK = £85K, EU OSS = €10K combined). Shopify auto-collects VAT once registered. Set 'All prices include tax' for EU market to show VAT-inclusive prices on the storefront — this is critical for EU CR.
Yes — per-product availability is configurable per Market. Open a product → Markets section → choose which Markets it's sold in. Useful for region-locked products (alcohol, supplements, regional flavors).
Install Shopify Translate & Adapt (free for Plus). Translates products, collections, navigation, theme content, and checkout. For higher quality, use a third-party app (Langify, Weglot) or professional translators for top-50 SKUs.
Shopify Plus
Provisioning Shopify Plus isn't a checkout — it's a 2-3 week sales + onboarding cycle. Get the org structure, staff roles, and expansion-store plan right on day one or you'll be cleaning it up for months.
Shopify Plus
Shopify B2B (formerly the Wholesale Channel) is now native on Plus. Companies, price lists, net-30 terms, and customer-specific catalogs all work — but most brands set up Companies wrong and end up rebuilding 3 months later.
Shopify Plus
Launchpad lets Plus brands schedule the entire choreography of a sale — theme swap, discount activation, product availability, Script toggle — to a single launch time. The alternative is staying up till midnight clicking buttons.
Shopify
Most Shopify owners install the Google channel app, see 'Connected,' and assume the feed is live. Then 60% of products land in 'Pending' or 'Disapproved' a week later. Here's the full setup with validation that actually works.