Pushed forward by major events over the past five years, the world that we know is shrinking even more. The borders to sell globally have been lowered, allowing brands that previously saw selling globally as a massive task, can do so in just a few simple clicks and a bit of setting up.
According to Shopify, 35% of all Shopify traffic comes from international visitors, with 92% of those visitors wanting to buy and surf products in their own currency.
If you’re not currently selling globally with your Shopify store, it’s a relatively simple setup when going from local to global. In this blog, we will cover essential steps to help you expand your e-commerce horizons and successfully sell your products to customers worldwide.
Here’s how to sell internationally on Shopify:
What Countries Should I sell to on Shopify?
When you start to expand and decide to take your brand international, you should be wary and stay aware of trying to sell to every country at the start.
Different markets around the world have different cultures, browsing and purchasing habits. Trying to sell to everyone at once is a quick way to fail at selling globally and utilising the features that Shopify Markets bring.
It’s also worth noting that every brand is different, your brand may be received better by one country than it is in another. There’s always the possibility that you’re going into a market where a bigger brand than yours already exists.
How to choose what countries to sell to on Shopify
There’s no wizardry that you have to do here, no magic trick and no guide that’ll show you exactly what countries your products or brand will perform best in.
Like with everything eCommerce, you have to go back to the data. Start by looking at your sessions by location report in Shopify’s analytics dashboard.
If you can see international visitors from different countries within your data, pick a few and start to drill down into their behaviour.
What you’re looking for is interest from other countries to see if there’s a demand for your products from consumers overseas. The result of your research will be to identify two markets for you to start expanding your brand into.
Even if you don’t have international visitors or sales yet, you should still be investigating potential markets for your brand to expand into.
Here’s what you should look for when selling internationally on Shopify:
- Markets that are close to your country
- Countries that share the same native language
- Regions with similar purchasing habits and behaviours
READ: Translating Your Shopify Store: Gearing Up Global Commerce
Display local currencies in your Shopify Store (Shopify Payments)
Once you’ve established the international market(s) that you’re going to target, ensure that those buyers can pay on your site in their own currency.
If international visitors aren’t able to make a purchase in their local currency it’s very unlikely that they will purchase. This is a very crucial step when selling internationally on Shopify.
To do this you can head over to your Shopify Payments settings and then click Add new country/region, now you’re able to select the market that you want to start selling to.
Buyers from your new target market will be able to view prices in their local currency, automatically converted from your base prices using real-time foreign exchange rates.
When setting up to sell internationally, you should pay close attention to how visitors in different regions will see your store. Prioritize installing a geolocation pop-up before any other popups as this will increase the likelihood that visitors in a foreign market will convert.
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