SHOPLINE allows customers to create markets for specific countries and regions, both individually and in groups. Based on your business objectives, you can quickly create and manage markets to align with your market strategy.

For example, you can create a North American market with the same settings for Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Conversely, if you want to apply different settings exclusively for the Japanese market, you can create another market specifically for Japan.

This article will explain how to create and manage these market groups.

First Visit to Markets

When you visit SHOPLINE Markets for the first time, we will automatically create a primary market for you:

If the country of the primary market can’t be determined based on your store’s currency, known as the supported currency, we will use the country with the highest number of orders as the primary market. For example, if your supported currency is Euro but you have the highest number of historical orders in the United Kingdom, your primary market will be “United Kingdom” instead.
You can have up to 50 markets at a time. We recommend merging countries and regions with similar pricing strategies into a multi-country/region market. For instance, if you previously enabled Canada, the United States, and Mexico in the payment settings but didn’t set any custom prices or specific strategies for these countries individually, you can group these three countries into a market called “North America”.

Primary Market

As mentioned, the primary market refers to the main country or region where you sell your products, typically your home country or domestic market.

If your supported currency doesn’t match the country/region in the store’s Location in Settings, your primary market is determined by the supported currency in Settings. For example, if your store location is in the United States but your supported currency is set to Canadian dollars, then your primary market will be Canada.

Any changes you make to your store will impact your primary market. When you change product prices or set new inventory locations, these changes will automatically apply to your primary market.

The setting for your primary market is fixed on the Markets page and can’t be edited.

Changing Supported Currency

Changing your store’s supported currency will also change your primary market because the primary market is determined by the supported currency.

If the new country/region already exists in a single-country/region market you set, that grouping will be deleted. Your original primary market will then be listed under your international market.

For example, if your supported currency is set to Canadian dollars and you change it to US dollars, your primary market will be changed to the United States. If you already have set a single-country/region market for the United States, it will be deleted. Canada will then be listed under your international market.

If your store has generated sales (orders), you cannot change the corresponding currency at this stage.

Learn more about how to change the currency for revenue.

Each country or region can only be included in one market.

Other Markets

In other markets, you can create a single-country/region or multi-country/region market to provide a localized online shopping experience.

If you change the countries/regions included in the market, market settings will remain unaffected. However, once a country/region is set as the primary market, it can’t be listed under markets. If a country/region that has been selected belongs to another market, it will be removed from the original market and added to the new market. If all the countries/regions under a market are deleted, the market itself will be removed as well.

When creating other markets, we will assign a default market currency, which can be modified in Market settings. For multi-country/region markets, you can enable or disable local currencies.

Single-Country/Region Market

A single-country/region market consists of only one country/region. When creating a new single-country/region market, we will set the base currency of that market as the currency of the country/region. In case the currency is not supported, we will use the base currency of your store as the default.

You can use a single-country/region market to target a specific country or region and tailor your strategies. For instance, if Canada is your primary market and you have significant international sales from the United States, creating a market exclusively for the United States allows American customers to have a localized browsing experience, boosting your sales and conversion rate.

Multi-Country/Region Market

A multi-country/region market includes multiple countries/regions. When setting up a multi-country/region market, we will automatically assign your store’s base currency as the default base currency and enable local currencies. However, if you choose to disable local currencies for a multi-country market, all customers within that market will use either the base currency of the market or another chosen base currency when making purchases.

For convenience, you can merge countries and regions with similar targeted strategies into a multi-country/region market. For example, if you sell products to Germany, France, Belgium, and Italy, each with the same product pricing, shipping fees, and domain, you can create a market that includes all four countries.

Creating a Market

When you want to customize the online shopping experience for customers in a specific region, you can create a new market on the Markets page. For example, you may want to target a group of countries or regions (such as North America) or a single country or region (such as Canada) as your sales market. With SHOPLINE Markets, you can create markets that make sense for your business.

If the new market you create includes a country/region or area that already belongs to another market, the country/region or area will be listed under your new market and removed from the existing market. If the existing market doesn’t include any other countries/regions or areas, we will automatically delete that market along with any associated international prices, domain names, subfolders, or custom items.

If you provide shipping to all the countries and regions included in the new market, the market will be active by default. Otherwise, the new market will be inactive and you will need to activate it before customers can check out from your store.

Here are the steps to create a market:

From your SHOPLINE admin panel, click Settings > Markets.
Click Create a market.
Enter Market name. This name will help you identify the market in the SHOPLINE admin panel but won’t be displayed to customers.
Click Add country/region.
Add the countries and regions you want to include in this market.
Click Create.

Note: You can have up to 50 markets in addition to the primary market. If you need more than 50 markets, consider grouping multiple countries and regions with similar targeting strategies into a multi-country/region market.

Previewing a Market

You can preview what the customer experience of a market would be like in the admin panel. You can preview both active and inactive markets for any language you have added to that market.

To preview a market, follow these steps:

From your SHOPLINE admin panel, click Settings > Markets.
Click on the market you want to see the preview. The system will redirect you to the detail page.
Navigate to the Preview button and click on the language you want to preview.

Activating a Market

If you haven’t enabled shipping to all countries and regions in a new market, the market will be inactive by default as some customers from these places will be unable to complete their purchases.

To activate a market, you need to set up shipping fees for all countries and regions within that market. You may also need to configure other market settings such as domain, language, currency, and pricing before activating the market and selling products in those countries and regions.

To activate a market, follow these steps:

From your SHOPLINE admin panel, click Settings > Markets.
Click on the market you want to activate and the system will redirect you to the detail page.
Click on the Enabled button and your online store will be activated.

Deactivating a Market

To stop selling physical products to customers in a specific market, you can deactivate that market. This won’t affect any existing orders. When you deactivate a market, all its settings are saved, allowing you to easily reactivate it in the future. Deactivating a market doesn’t change or remove your delivery regions, but customers from inactive markets won’t be able to complete their purchases.

If you deactivate a market with an associated top-level domain or subdomain, customers will automatically be redirected to your primary market’s domain. However, deactivating a market that was set up using subfolders will render those subfolder URLs inactive. It’s recommended to set up redirects to ensure customer access to your store.

To deactivate a market, follow these steps:

From your SHOPLINE admin panel, click Settings > Markets.
Click on the market you want to deactivate and the system will redirect you to the detail page.
Click on the Disabled button and confirm your choice when the pop-up window Confirm you want to disable this market appears.

Removing a Market

You can remove a market on the Markets page. This prevents customers in that market from checking out with physical products and invalidates subfolder URLs. However, existing orders won’t be affected. Removing a market will permanently delete it.

To remove a market, follow these steps:

From your SHOPLINE admin panel, click Settings > Markets.
Click on the market you want to delete and the system will redirect you to the detail page.
Choose the Remove market button and confirm your choice when the pop-up warning Confirming the removal of a market appears.

Editing Market Countries/Regions

You can add or remove countries/regions within existing markets.

Adding Countries/Regions to an Existing Market

You can add countries/regions to an existing market. For instance, if you have a multi-country/region market and already sell products in France and Germany, you may also decide to start selling products in Italy. In this case, simply add Italy to your existing multi-country/region market.

Here is how to add countries/regions to an existing market:

From your SHOPLINE admin panel, click Settings > Markets.
Click on the market you want to edit and the system will redirect you to the detail page.
Click Edit.
Select Add country/region and search for the countries/regions you want to add, then check the box next to its name.
Click Complete, then Updates.

Removing Countries/Regions from an Existing Market

You can remove countries/regions from an existing market. For instance, if you have a North American market that includes the United States, Canada, and Mexico. However, your sales in Canada haven’t met expectations. In this case, you can remove Canada from the North American market. By doing so, Canada will be moved to the list of countries/regions where you don’t sell, and customers from Canada will no longer be able to proceed with checkout.

However, if you wish to remove a country/region from an existing market and add it to a single country/region market, you can simply follow the steps for creating a new market. For example, say your multi-country/region market covers all countries within the European Union, but you decide to develop more targeted strategies for the German market. To do so, create a new market specifically for Germany, and you can retain all the other EU countries within the initial multi-country/region market.

Steps to remove countries/regions from an existing market:

From your SHOPLINE admin panel, click Settings > Markets.
Click on the market you want to edit and the system will redirect you to the detail page.
Click Edit.
Remove the countries and regions you no longer wish to sell products to by choosing the trash bin icon.
Click Updates.

Market Preference Settings

You can enhance the online shopping experience by configuring domain/subfolder redirection and rounding prices.

Follow these steps to set up market preferences:

From your SHOPLINE admin panel, click Settings > Markets.
Click Preference settings.
Tick the box next to Domain/subfolder redirection and Price Rounding to add the settings.
Click Updates.

For more details, refer to the guides on domain/subfolder redirection and price rounding.

Market Management

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