How To Set Up A Market And Choose Where You Ship In Shopify

In Shopify's new shipping system, a market decides where you ship. To choose your shipping regions, open Markets in your admin, click your market, click the pencil beside Includes, tick the countries or regions you want, click Done, then save. Shipping options, currency, taxes and policies you set for that market then apply to every region inside it.

What A Market Is And Why It Replaces Shipping Zones

In the older system, you built a shipping zone and listed countries inside it. In the new system, the market does that job. A market is a group of regions that you sell to with its own settings, such as shipping options, currency and taxes.

This matters because there are no shipping zones to edit anymore. To ship to a new region, you add and activate a market that includes it.

Markets now has its own place in the main navigation of your Shopify admin, with Catalogs and Rollouts beneath it. Those two are separate topics. This guide covers the market page itself and the regions inside it.

How To Open Your Market

1. In your Shopify admin, click Markets in the left menu.
2. Click the market you want to work on. This guide uses United States as the example.

At the top of the page you will see the market name with two badges, Region and Active. The More actions menu at the top right gives you three choices: Edit market handle, Delete market and View online store. Be careful with Delete market. Deleting a market removes the regions and settings that depend on it.

How To Read A Market Page

The page has four areas worth knowing.

• Name and status. The name is for your own use. The Active dropdown controls whether the market is live.
• Includes. The countries or regions in this market, with a pencil icon to edit them.
• Customized. Settings you have changed for this market. Shipping appears here once you set it up.
• Inherited. Settings the market takes from your store default. Each row has a plus button that lets you customize it for this market.

The Inherited list includes Currency, Catalogs, Discounts, Online Store, Domain and language, Taxes and duties, Returns and cancellations, and Checkout and accounts. Leave a row alone if the default is right for you. You only customize what needs to be different.

On the right you will see the Parent market, which shows Store default for a top-level market. A child market inherits shipping from its parent until you open Shipping and click Customize.

How To Add Regions To A Market

1. On the market page, click the pencil icon beside Includes.
2. A window called Market conditions opens. The condition type shown is Regions.
3. Type a country in the Search regions box. In this example, typing "united" shows United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and United States.
4. Tick the box beside each country or region you want.
5. Click Done.
6. Click Save at the top of the page.

The counter at the bottom of the window shows how many regions are selected. Check it before you click Done.

How To Start Shipping In A New Market

A market inherits its shipping settings until you change them. In the Inherited list, Shipping reads Not shipping.

1. In the Inherited list, click the plus beside Shipping.
2. A small panel opens. It shows a Shipping toggle that reads Not shipping, and Add shipping option.
3. Click Customize.
4. Shipping now moves up into the Customized section.
5. Click the Not shipping dropdown, then click Add shipping option.

The next guide walks through the Add shipping option screen. Do not worry about products yet. Set up your market and a first option that applies to all products. You can add options for specific products after your products and collections exist.

Add Regions Slowly

Shopify lists every country and territory. It is tempting to tick them all, and I advise against it. Everybody thinks they want to sell to anybody who wants to buy. In practice, you will not sell to other countries unless you have marketed to them or your product is unavailable there.

Every region you add needs shipping that works at checkout. If a customer in a region has no shipping option, they cannot complete an order.

Start with the country you ship from. Expand one market at a time, and place a test order for each new region.

What To Do When Regions Need Different Rates

You have two choices. You can put several regions into one market and give them the same shipping options, or you can create separate markets for regions that need different rates, taxes or currency.

As a rule, keep regions together when their costs are similar, and separate them when the carrier cost, the duties or the delivery times are very different. The steps for creating a new market are in the next section.

Excluding individual US states from a market is not something I can show you yet. Shopify's help text describes expanding the country to untick states, but the United States entry in my admin shows no expand arrow. I have asked Shopify support and will update this guide when I hear back.

How To Create A New Market

Create a separate market when a region needs its own currency, discounts, language or shipping. Work down the page in this order.

1. On the Markets page, click the button to add a new market. A page called New market opens.
2. Type a Name. The name is for your own use.
3. Next to Includes, click Add condition, search for the countries or regions you want, tick them and click Done.
4. Check the status next to the name. Active means the market is live.
5. Work down the Inherited list. Every row starts with your store default, and the plus button on a row lets you customize it for this market. Leave a row alone when the default is right.
6. Save the market.

Here is what each Inherited row means.

• Currency. It starts in your store currency, US Dollar in my example. You can add a different currency for this market here.
• Catalogs. It starts on All products. Use a catalog when you want to give one market its own pricing, which is a good fit for wholesale. A catalog has a Title, the Markets it applies to, a Price adjustment as a percentage increase or decrease, and the products it includes.
• Discounts. It starts on All eligible discounts. Customize it to add a discount for this market.
• Domain and language. Customize it when the market needs its own language or domain.
• Shipping. It starts on Not shipping. Click the plus, choose Customize, then add a shipping option, as shown above and in the next guide.
• Checkout and accounts. This row is for information only. You set up checkout and customer accounts in Settings, under Checkout and customer accounts, not from the market page.

More Settings For Your Market

On the right side of the market page, under More settings, you will see Customer privacy and Policies.

Customer privacy covers your cookie banner and data sharing opt-out. Policies opens your return and cancellation rules and your written policies. Both open the matching pages in Settings, so you will find the full walkthroughs in the chapters on customer privacy and policies.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I add a country to my Shopify market?

Open Markets, click your market, click the pencil beside Includes, search for the country in the Market conditions window, tick it, click Done and then Save. Make sure the market has a shipping option that applies to the new country.

What is the difference between Customized and Inherited on a market page?

Customized settings are ones you changed for that market. Inherited settings come from your store default or parent market. Click the plus button on an inherited row to customize it for that market.

Can I delete a Shopify market?

Yes, from More actions at the top right of the market page, but think first. Deleting a market removes the settings that depend on it, so confirm the regions are covered by another market before you delete.

Why can my customer not check out after I added a region?

The most common cause is a region without a shipping option. Open the market, click Shipping, and confirm at least one option applies to that region, then place a test order.

Do I need a different market for every country?

No. Use one market for regions with similar costs and a separate market when rates, taxes, duties or currency need to differ.