Shopify Markets: All You Need to Know

technologhy
Nov 7, 2023
8m
Anna Pham

One of the key benefits of selling online is that you're able to sell anywhere in the world. The worldwide market provides merchants with new options to broaden their market share and sell more of their items. Global ecommerce sales are expected to reach $5.545 trillion in 2022 and will keep on rising year after year. However, international ecommerce has a reputation for needing help to break into.

Language, currency, logistical difficulties, tax laws, government regulations, and other issues have prompted many vendors to limit their company to within their own country. Shopify, on the other hand, has developed its revolutionary global ecommerce solution, which enables merchants to simply sell their products in international marketplaces. We'll go over how Shopify Markets functions and how it may assist you.

What is Shopify Markets?

Shopify Markets is an international management system that assists merchants in selling their items more efficiently in the worldwide market. It is a big improvement to the Shopify ecosystem, which was introduced to change the worldwide ecommerce business. 

Sellers who wished to sell their products worldwide in the past had to rely on other marketplaces or even third-party shops. That has all changed with the introduction of Shopify Markets. 

It has never been easier to sell worldwide. Shopify Markets enables you to sell your products to global customers without the usage of third-party solutions. You can manage, strategize, and convert foreign customers from a single platform. 

Shopify Markets allows retailers to adapt online shopping experiences for diverse buyers all over the world. Entrepreneurs may organize markets to target certain areas or nations, and you can even group numerous regions or countries together to speed up your expansion efforts. 

This means that merchants can reach new customers and marketplaces all around the world in only a few clicks. They can scale their enterprises faster and control their markets with a single unified dashboard. Sellers are able to track their business's KPIs, quickly compare their store to rivals, A/B test their ads, and adapt their marketing strategy. Shopify has even developed an optional smart setting function to optimize operations and analyze store performance, automating modifications along the route to boost sales based on real-time data.

Why should your online business use Shopify Markets? 

1. Reach new markets and clients in only a few clicks. 

Trading in international markets previously required brands to put up different storefronts for their target demographic. As a result, they had to handle several websites and inventories for orders placed. Shopify Markets will simplify the work and combine them all into one dashboard. 

2. Increase sales by creating unique purchasing experiences for each market.

With localizations such as language, currency, duties, and numerous payment methods readily available, firms will be able to provide a more personalized shopping experience to customers from emerging regions.

3. Scale more quickly with automated settings

Utilize advanced data-driven settings to automatically enhance conversions and generate better customer experiences across several markets, or take control of everything to manage experiences directly. 

Features of Shopify Markets 

1. Currencies 

Online buyers prefer to shop in their own currency rather than having to calculate conversions. According to Shopify research, localizing currencies can help online retailers raise their conversion rates by up to 40%. 

With Shopify Markets, you can instantly convert your online shop's prices to 130+ international currencies using Shopify Payments. You are going to be able to round up the pricing based on the most recent foreign exchange rates.

2. Languages 

Shopify Markets allows sellers to translate their whole store in order to provide worldwide customers with a natural multilingual experience. It is critical to translate your product specifications and content into the visitor's native language in order to break into new markets. Even if the information is of poor quality, 65% of customers prefer the website to be in their native tongue. Shopify Markets uses third-party translation applications to fully translate your store, which means that every page, from product descriptions to checkout pages, will be automatically translated to the customer's native language.

3. Duties, Sales Taxes, and Shipping 

If you sell worldwide, customers may be charged extra taxes, sales, and import taxes when they get their products. Before completing the checkout process, every global online buyer wants to know exactly the price that a thing will cost.

One of the key problems for worldwide eCommerce companies is to provide these additional fees upfront before the consumer clicks the buy button. As a vendor, you must be aware of the customs and import taxes that may affect the final cost of their order. 

Shopify Markets automatically evaluates this information and notifies the user how much duty and import taxes are needed at the time of checkout. Your customers will see the whole cost of the product to avoid being shocked by any unexpected charges. 

Unexpected shipping expenses and fees are a major contributor to abandoned carts. Customers may feel duped by the lack of openness throughout their online purchasing journey and decide not to purchase. Merchants avoid unfavorable experiences and encourage positive feedback by removing unexpected charges.

4. Payment Methods 

Provide easy and trustworthy payment solutions to your overseas customers. Payment methods accessible can have a major impact on conversions. Many clients decide to pay with payment providers they know and trust, which may vary based on their country. In North America, for instance, credit cards outnumber digital wallets such as PayPal, Venmo, Shop Pay, and Apple Pay.

Some European countries, on the other hand, rely on bank transfer-based payment processes.

Shopify Markets makes it simple to integrate popular European means of payment at your checkout, which reduces cart abandonment. For merchants targeting the Indian market, integrating local payment gateways is crucial. Shopify supports several popular payment gateways for Indian businesses , such as Razorpay, PayU, and Instamojo, providing a seamless and trusted payment experience for Indian customers.

5. SEO-friendly domains 

60% of online purchasing journeys begin with a search engine, regardless of the market you enter. This is the stage at which having a strong international domain strategy becomes crucial. 

It's been demonstrated that international domains can improve a store's search engine presence for customers from other countries. This helps bring in new clients—and the right kind of clients for a given market—so your storefront sales will increase. 

When you establish a new market for your company, Shopify Markets will immediately create subfolders, making it simple to build up a region-specific domain strategy. 

If you sell in Canada and have a domain as shop.com, your Indian market domain will be shop.com/en-in. You will also have control over the structure of your global domains, which you can configure using the Shopify admin. 

Shopify will also automatically include the appropriate SEO tags, ensuring that overseas purchasers see the correct URL in search results. 

6. Configurable market areas 

You will be able to easily arrange your worldwide business and handle multiple markets using Shopify Markets. You will be able to control nations or regions by grouping them rather than managing them individually, allowing you to execute market plans more efficiently and without having to do monotonous tasks. 

For instance, you may set up a group (market) to oversee the entire United States and another for Europe. You will be enabled to run the above-mentioned localizations at scale for each store. 

7. International pricing controls 

The same pricing plan might not work in all markets. By putting up custom product prices in each market, Shopify Markets gives you more flexibility over your pricing strategy from a single store. You can make simple percentage-based modifications to manage the income you get on purchases in different regions. 

8. Market-specific inventory and fulfillment controls 

If you have stock in separate warehouses for foreign sales, Shopify Markets will assist you in syncing the correct inventory to the online shop that can deliver to that specific location. This improves inventory visibility and allows you to manage order fulfillment more efficiently.

9. Smart Settings

This useful feature will enable e-merchants to streamline how to best sell in various markets based on gathered data from 1.7 million global Shopify businesses. With this enabled, you can be confident that your stores are optimized to give the greatest possible experience for your clients. It entails finding the optimal payment methods to provide during checkout, resulting in more conversions. In fact, according to a Shopify study, adding the Bancontact payment choice to Belgian shoppers resulted in a substantial conversion rise. With such knowledge at your disposal, you may see your overseas sales increase.

View data that will assist you in deciding which markets to enter and optimizing your local shop performance with the new Shopify Markets. (Image courtesy of Shopify)

This feature can also track business performance, allowing you to make informed decisions about how to operate in each of your overseas markets.

Smart settings can be disabled if you choose to maintain human control over how you sell in different countries.

10. Coming Soon

Shopify is continually adding new capabilities to its extensive array of features. They want to offer a slew of additional features to give merchants even more control and flexibility over their worldwide operations. As a result, overseas buyers will have a more positive shopping experience at your store. Shopify intends to implement these features soon: 

  • Payouts: Based on your needs, you may distribute payouts received in multiple currencies to various bank accounts for an additional organized accounting system. 
  • Market-specific content: Simply translating your website isn't enough. Provide your international visitors in certain markets with customized material that is suited to their needs. Assume you own a travel agency. Visitors in warm climates may require different products than visitors in cooler regions. 
  • Product catalogs customized to specific markets: Adapt your offerings to market restrictions and laws, preferences, and availability.

What’s Included Based on Your Shopify Plan?

Shopify Markets has been in business since September 2021. Depending on the type of plan, it operates significantly differently for retailers. Here's an overview of what each plan includes: 

All Shopify plans:

  • Control each market from a single dashboard.
  • With Shopify Payments, you can sell your products in 133 different currencies.
  • Shopify Payments provides local payment choices.
  • Translate the shop into up to 20 languages.
  • Set up personalized domains for your store to increase local SEO. 
  • Intelligent settings that enhance global marketplace operations

Additional features for Advanced/Plus plans:

  • Create unique pricing and inventory for each marketplace. 
  • Create distinct websites and catalogs for each market.
  • Duty and import taxes are collected at the point of sale.
  • Control each market's fulfillment websites.

Fees for international transactions:

When using Shopify Payments to calculate duty and import taxes, there is a 0.85% cost per order and a 1.5% fee for employing an alternative payment supplier.

When converting a currency, there is a 1.5% cost for each order.

Conclusion 

Global selling is the way of the future for eCommerce. Brands that are unable to sell globally or extend beyond their local or domestic market will miss out on many achievable chances. 

It is now simpler than ever to set up a worldwide business with Shopify Markets. Many customers from all around the world are probably interested in what you have to offer. However, without a proper setup, such as language translation, currency modifications, and other aspects, potential purchasers may be hesitant to make a purchase. 

Merchants may now effortlessly manage their storefronts and strategize their business in various marketplaces around the world. Finally, it's wonderful news for merchants, and every seller ought to know how to make use of the power of Shopify Markets.