Markets Overview – SHOPLINE Help Center

SHOPLINE Markets lets you expand your business across regions by customizing how your store appears and operates for different countries or groups of countries. Whether you're selling in a single new country or building a regional strategy, Markets gives you control over settings like pricing, currency, language, domain, and payments.

This article introduces the core concept of SHOPLINE Markets, explaining how your primary market is determined and the key distinctions between single-country/region and multi-country/region markets.

Introduction to Markets

What is SHOPLINE Markets?

SHOPLINE's Markets module allows you to tailor your store experience for different regions. With Markets, you can group countries into sales regions and customize settings like language, pricing, currency, and domains.

For example, you can use the same pricing and settings across the US, Canada, and Mexico in a "North America" market, while applying Japan-specific pricing and domain rules in a dedicated Japanese market.

When to Use Markets

SHOPLINE Markets is designed to support merchants with diverse international selling needs. Consider enabling this functionality in the following scenarios:

Selling to Multiple Markets
You plan to expand your business to multiple markets, each requiring unique settings such as product pricing, languages, domains, discount rules, and shipping fees.
Offering Local Currencies
If your store has already processed orders in the default currency but you want to charge customers in their local currencies, enable additional markets. This allows you to display prices and accept payments in multiple currencies without changing the default currency or affecting existing orders.

Primary Market

Your primary market is automatically configured and cannot be changed. It defaults to your selling country or region. More specifically, it is determined by the currency set in SHOPLINE Admin > Settings > Basic settings > Payment currency.
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There are three possible scenarios for determining your primary market:

Payment currency matches store location: The country matching your payment currency will be set as your primary market.
Payment currency differs from store location: The primary market will be based on your store's currency rather than its location.
Primary market cannot be determined by currency: If the system cannot identify a country based on your store's currency, it will select the country with the highest number of historical orders as the primary market.

Examples:

Your store is located in the United States, and your store's currency is USD → The U.S. becomes your primary market.
Your store is located in Canada, but your store's currency is USD → The U.S. becomes your primary market.
Your store's currency is Euro, and the United Kingdom has the highest number of past orders → The U.K. becomes your primary market.

Note: Settings in your primary market are based on the configurations in their respective modules in the SHOPLINE Admin. These settings, such as product pricing and payments, cannot be modified directly from the Markets page. Use the provided links to manage them in the appropriate sections of your admin panel.

Impact of Changing Your Store's Currency

When you change your store's currency, your primary market will be updated to the country or region associated with the new currency. If that country or region is already part of an existing single-country/region market, that market will be deleted. The country or region from your previous primary market will be moved to your international market.

Note: You can change your store's default currency (i.e., the primary market's currency) before receiving any orders. Once orders have been placed, the default currency can no longer be modified.

Example: If your store's currency is set to Canadian dollars and you change it to US dollars, your primary market will become the United States. If a single-country/region market for the US already exists, it will be deleted. Canada, your former primary market, will be moved to your international market.

Additional Market Types

Beyond your primary market, you can create up to 50 additional markets to support international expansion. These markets fall into two categories: Single-Country/Region Markets and Multi-Country/Region Markets.

Single-Country/Region Market

A single-country/region market includes only one country or region. This type of market is ideal if you want to tailor your strategy for a specific location.
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Currency assignment: When creating a single-country/region market, the system sets its default currency to match the local currency of that country or region. If that currency isn't supported, your store's default currency will be used instead.
When to use it: Use a single-country/region market to deliver a fully localized experience, such as country-specific pricing, language, and shipping.
Example: If Canada is your primary market and you see significant traffic from the United States, you can create a dedicated market for the U.S. to provide a tailored experience that boosts conversion rates.

Multi-Country/Region Market

A multi-country/region market includes two or more countries or regions grouped under shared configurations.
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Currency assignment: By default, the market will use your store’s default currency, with local currencies automatically enabled for each country or region. If you disable local currencies, all customers in the market will see prices in the store’s default currency or the selected market currency.
When to use it: Use a multi-country/region market when your pricing and selling strategies are similar across several locations.
Example: If you offer the same product pricing, shipping, and domain setup for Germany, France, Belgium, and Italy, you can combine these countries into one "Europe" market for streamlined management.

Now that you understand how Markets can support your global expansion and the differences between market types, refer to this guide to learn how to create markets and complete their basic configurations.