Shopify Markets explained: selling abroad without a second store

The order from Brazil that never arrived

A merchant in Ohio gets an order from Brazil. The customer paid in dollars, the shipping took two weeks, and the customer got a customs bill on delivery and refused the package. The merchant refunded the order and lost the shipping cost, and the customer will never come back. That is the normal experience of selling abroad without a plan, and it is the problem Shopify Markets was built to solve.

Shopify Markets is free on all plans, and it lets a merchant configure a market the way they configure a store: currency, language, domain or subfolder, catalog, pricing, and duties, all per market. The store stays one store, and the customer in Brazil sees prices in reais, checks out with PIX, and gets the duties included at checkout. The merchant does not open a second store, and does not need a second inventory.

What a market actually controls

A market in Shopify is a group of countries with its own settings. The merchant sets the currency, the language, the domain or subfolder, the product catalog, the pricing, and the duty and tax handling, all per market. A market can have a different catalog from the home market, which means a merchant can exclude products that cannot ship abroad, or that need a different certification. A market can also have different prices, which matters when the shipping cost or the duty changes the margin.

Local currency requires Shopify Payments or Adyen, which is the first constraint to check. Without one of those, the store can still sell abroad, but the customer pays in the store's currency, which is the experience that loses the sale. The conversion fee is 1.5 percent in the US and 2 percent elsewhere, calculated on the gross order amount since April 6, 2026. That fee is the cost of the local currency, and it should be built into the market's pricing rather than absorbed.

Managed Markets, and the 3.5 percent that buys the paperwork

Managed Markets is the version where Global-e acts as the merchant of record, which means Global-e handles tax registration and remittance, duties, and delivered duty paid, or DDP. The fee is 3.5 percent, or 3.25 percent on Plus, plus the conversion fee. That is a lot, and it is also the price of not having to register for tax in every country, not having to calculate duties, and not having the customer refuse a package over a customs bill.

The trade is simple: a merchant who sells abroad occasionally should use standard Markets and handle the duties themselves, or use DDP through a carrier. A merchant who sells abroad at volume, and who does not want to register for tax in ten countries, should use Managed Markets and pay the 3.5 percent. The fee is the cost of the paperwork, and the paperwork is the part that kills most cross-border sales.

The limits that decide whether Markets fits

Local payment methods are the feature that makes Markets work. iDEAL in the Netherlands, Bancontact in Belgium, Klarna in northern Europe, and PIX in Brazil are the methods customers actually use, and a store that does not offer them loses the sale to one that does. Markets supports those methods through Shopify Payments, which is the second reason the payment setup matters.

The limits are real too. Managed Markets does not support subscriptions or B2B, so a merchant who sells subscriptions abroad needs standard Markets and a separate plan for the subscription billing. And a market is not a separate store: the inventory is shared, the customer data is shared, and the reporting is shared. That is the point of the product, and it is also the constraint. A merchant who needs a genuinely separate operation abroad needs a separate store, and Markets is not that.

Frequently asked questions

Is Shopify Markets free?

Yes, standard Markets is free on all plans. The costs are the conversion fee, 1.5 percent in the US and 2 percent elsewhere, calculated on the gross order amount since April 6, 2026, and the Managed Markets fee of 3.5 percent, or 3.25 percent on Plus, if you use Global-e as merchant of record.

Do I need Shopify Payments to use Shopify Markets?

For local currency, yes. Local currency requires Shopify Payments or Adyen. Without one of those, you can still sell abroad, but the customer pays in your store's currency, which loses sales. The local payment methods, like iDEAL, Bancontact, Klarna, and PIX, also run through Shopify Payments.

What is the difference between Shopify Markets and Managed Markets?

Standard Markets is a configuration layer: you set currency, language, catalog, pricing, and duties per market, and you handle the tax and duty paperwork yourself. Managed Markets puts Global-e in as the merchant of record, so Global-e handles tax registration and remittance, duties, and delivered duty paid, for 3.5 percent, or 3.25 percent on Plus.

Can I sell subscriptions through Shopify Markets?

Not through Managed Markets, which does not support subscriptions or B2B. Standard Markets can sell subscriptions abroad, but the subscription billing has to be handled separately, and the merchant has to manage the tax and duty handling for those orders themselves.