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Redirecting Customers to the Right Market

If your store has multi-market enabled (for example, your primary market is the US and you also have a Japan market), you can redirect customers to the right market with the right language and currency display. For example, customers from the US will see English and US dollars. Customers from Japan will see Japanese and Japanese yen.

There are two types of redirect:

  • Manual multi-market redirect (recommended)
  • Automatic multi-market redirect

This article explains how each one works, with examples.

 

 

1. Manual Multi-Market Redirect (Recommended)

When a customer visits your store for the first time, a pop-up appears asking them to choose their market and language. Since the customer makes the choice themselves, this doesn't affect how search engines crawl your site, so it's better for SEO.

How to set it up:

  1. Go to the SHOPLINE App Store and install the Geolocation Redirects app.
    07-01-2026_12_57_PM.png
  2. On the Redirect component inside the app, turn on Enable Geolocation Redirect.
    Group 3558304 (2).png

When does the pop-up appear?

Example store setup:

  • US market (primary): English / Spanish
  • Japan market: Japanese / English
Scenario Result
US customer, English browser, visits US market No pop-up (they're already in the right place)
US customer, English browser, visits Japan market Pop-up appears, default options to: 
Market = US
Language = English
Japan customer, Japanese browser, visits US market Pop-up appears, default options to: 
Market = Japan
Language = Japanese
Customer from another country visits US or Japan market Pop-up appears, default options to: 
Market = US (primary market)
Language = browser's language 
(or English if that language isn't set up in the store)

Notes: 

  • Once a customer picks a market and language, their choice is saved in a browser cookie. They won't see the pop-up again until the cookie expires or is cleared.
  • The customer's location is determined based on the IP address used when the customer visits the store.

 

 

2. Automatic Multi-Market Redirect

The system automatically sends customers to a market based on their IP address, then to a language based on their browser settings. Because automatic redirects can affect how search engines crawl your site and SEO performance, SHOPLINE recommends using the manual multi-market redirect instead.

How to set it up:

  1. Go to SHOPLINE Admin > Markets > Preferences
    Group 3558310 (2).png
  2. Enable Domain/Subfolder auto-redirect and click Updates to save
    Group 3558314 (1).png

How the auto-redirect rules work:

Example store setup:

  • US market (primary): English / Spanish
  • Japan market: Japanese / English
Scenario Redirect
US customer + English browser → US market, English
US customer + Spanish browser → US market, Spanish
Japan customer + Japanese browser → Japan market, Japanese
Japan customer + English browser → Japan market, English
Customer from any other country → Primary market (US), shown in the browser's language (or English if that language isn't set up in the store)

Notes: 

  • If a customer is auto-redirected but then manually switches markets using the store's market selector, their choice is saved in a cookie, so they won't be auto-redirected again until the cookie expires or is cleared. 
  • Due to legal requirements, customers in the EU are not automatically redirected. See below for details.

Redirection Rules for EU Countries/Regions

To comply with local regulations, if a market uses an EU country-code top-level domain (ccTLD), such as .de or .fr, customers visiting that domain will not be automatically redirected to another country's market.

However, if a market uses a non-EU domain (like .com or .shop), automatic redirect is allowed.

Examples:

  • If Germany uses .de and France uses .fr → a French customer visiting .de will not be redirected to .fr.
  • If Germany uses .com/de-de and France uses .com/fr-fr → a French customer visiting .com/de-de will be redirected to .com/fr-fr.

List of EU Countries/Regions and Their ccTLDs

Country/Region ccTLD Country/Region ccTLD
Austria  .at Italy  .it
Belgium  .be Latvia  .lv
Bulgaria   .bg Lithuania  .lt
Croatia  .hr Luxembourg .lu
Cyprus   .cy Malta .mt
Czech Republic  .cz Netherlands  .nl
Denmark  .dk Poland .pl
Estonia .ee Portugal .pt
Finland  .fi Romania  .ro
France  .fr Slovakia  .sk
Germany .de Slovenia .si
Greece .gr Spain  .es
Hungary   .hu Sweden  .se
Ireland  .ie European Union  .eu