"National champions are an obsolete model" - these are the words of Neelie Kroes, management consultant and former EU Commissioner for International Competition. And she is right: successful companies think beyond their national borders. Internationalisation is the name of the game. For a while, Shopify lagged behind this reality. The solutions it offered for going international were slow, cumbersome and inflexible. For example, multi-language and multi-currency support was a slow process.
But the big thing about Shopify internationalisation is here: Shopify Markets makes international expansion easier. In this article, we explain how to make the most of it for your business.
What is Shopify Markets?
Shopify Markets is Shopify's all-in-one solution for selling worldwide from a single store. Once activated, a wide range of options are added to your store's admin area. These include tools for localisation and customisation, as well as automatic calculation of duties, taxes and exchange rates. In this way, the international look and feel of a store can be controlled from a central point, and the storefront can be quickly adapted to national and regional specifics. New markets can be entered more quickly and time-to-market drastically reduced.
So far, so good. Shopify is also partly promoting its own product, but what exactly can Markets do?
In detail: The benefits of Shopify Markets
Source: www.shopify.de/markets
A successful international presence involves much more than just quickly translating your shop into the local language. That's why Shopify Markets covers the most diverse aspects and allows you to customise them according to where you sell. These include:
Shopify international: Domains and subfolders
Firstly, Shopify Markets allows you to choose a country-specific domain. For example, topshop.de becomes topshop.us. This small change has a huge trust-building effect: customers appreciate shops from their home country and place their orders with much more confidence.
You can also create subfolders for a domain, such as topshop.com/fr. This approach is recommended for brands that already have an international reputation and a well-known top-level domain, but want to further optimise their search results by becoming more international.
Shopify Markets also supports location-based, automated redirection to country-specific domains and subfolders. But beware: Current EU law does not allow this, keyword: geoblocking.
Translations: Language barriers are a thing of the past
English as an international business language is all very well. But customers are much more comfortable when they can be greeted in their own language. That's why Shopify Markets allows stores to be automatically translated into 20 languages.
We would also like to point out that the translations here are, of course, done by machines. These tools are getting better all the time, but they are still far from perfect. To save you embarrassment, a human pair of eyes should always look over the final texts.
Product releases by market
Not every product is suitable for every market - if you're a food retailer, you probably don't want to promote Westphalian ham on the Arabian Peninsula. That's why Shopify Markets lets you choose which stores you want to sell to.
Customised storefront
The store front itself also has a major influence on international success. What is presented, how is it presented and, above all, how is your brand presented? These questions have a huge impact on how you are perceived by the local clientele.
To use a few clichés: US Americans tend to expect a warm welcome, while reserved Finns appreciate a sober appearance. In Europe, black is a colour with many negative connotations; in China, for example, it stands for power, money and intense thinking. Or think of a roll of a store's biggest highlights on the home page. While people in the northern hemisphere are freezing in winter, it's summer in the south; coats versus swimwear. Here too, individuality is in demand. That's why the entire storefront can be customised for each national store using Shopify Markets, and perfectly tailored to each target audience.
International e-commerce: pricing by market
Shopify Markets automatically converts all supported currencies at the current exchange rate. However, it does not always make sense to simply convert prices one-to-one into the local currency. There are too many factors at play, such as the local demand for a product or the purchasing power of local customers. So you can adjust the price of each product individually for each market. Either individually or according to pre-defined rules, such as bundled prices or discounts and promotions linked to certain conditions.
Local payment methods
You can also customise the payment methods you offer. In Germany, hardly anyone will be offended if you don't offer payment by credit card. But if you don't offer it in Scandinavia or North America, you'll lose a lot of customers. To be able to accept all payment methods, Shopify Payments should not be a foreign word; it is necessary to allow individual settings via Markets.
Find out more about all the payment methods available to you with Shopify Payments.
Estimated duties and import taxes
If there's one thing online shoppers have little or no tolerance for, it's nasty surprises. If they order from you for what they thought was $50, but end up with a bill for $100 because of customs or other fees like shipping or delivery, you've probably seen the last of them. That's why Shopify Markets shows what fees are likely to be based on the shopper's location at checkout. Your shipping company will then take care of the transfer to the customs authorities.
Localised address forms
Despite the wishes of the German Institute for Standardisation, not every address in the world adheres to DIN 5008. In Poland and Portugal, hyphens creep into the postcode, Ireland has been using the so-called eircode for some time now, Spain would like to see a province name after the city name, and the Japanese do not address by street and house number, but by administrative unit. In short, one address for all is not possible. At least not yet.
But Shopify Markets has thought of that too, and gives you the ability to customise your address forms for each country - with templates, automatic localisation and auto-completion, of course.
Dreams of the future: Shopify Markets Pro
Shopify Markets is currently available in beta in the UK and will be rolled out over time. Plans include even closer integration of inventory management and fulfilment with the system. But from our own experience we can say: Shopify Markets already works perfectly and can be used in many areas in practice.
What does not yet work - at least in this country - is Shopify Markets Pro. As the name suggests, this is a professional version of the service with even more features. These include the ability to calculate customs duties to the nearest cent, express shipping with prepaid fees, more payment methods and automated management of import restrictions.
Shopify Markets Pro is currently only being launched and tested in the US. So it may be a while before it arrives in Europe. We will keep you updated as soon as there is news.
How much does it cost to use Shopify Markets?
The question is, what do you have to pay for all this?
The good news first: Markets is already included in the Basic, Shopify, Advanced and Plus plans, so it won't cost you anything extra for now.
The not-so-good news: transaction fees will still be charged, but will remain within reasonable limits.
Overall, you only pay when you sell something. That seems fair enough.
Our experiences with Shopify Markets
Here you can see the current home page of Yaasa. Source: www.yaasa.com
If you want to see a fresh and successful implementation in practice, we recommend a visit to the Yaasa shop. Not only will you find height-adjustable desks and ergonomic office chairs for healthy working, but also a button in the top left-hand corner that allows you to easily switch between eleven international shop pages. Just like that, in the middle of surfing and on every subpage, without having to jump back to the home page every time you select a country. If you are a virtual Swiss, you can even choose between German, Italian and French, a small but useful detail tailored to each market.
Sell internationally with Shopify Markets
Going international couldn't be easier than with Shopify Markets. National specifics are taken into account, as well as customs and taxes. Everything is controlled from a central dashboard, so there is virtually nothing to stop automation. Jumping over the next border is just a few clicks away. If you're convinced, why not put Kroes' words into action and head straight to your next international market with Shopify Markets.
Need help with internationalisation? Just contact us.