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Setting up localization for markets

When customers visit your online store, they need to be matched to the right market so they receive the right customer experience. This process is also known as localization or localized customer experience. You have options for both automatic and manual localization, depending on your preferences.

Localizing customers to the correct market experience directly affects your conversion rates and customer satisfaction:

  • Customers are more likely to complete a purchase when prices are in a familiar currency. Displaying a foreign currency creates uncertainty about the actual cost.
  • Customers who can browse and check out in their preferred language are more confident in their purchase decisions and less likely to abandon their cart.
  • Displaying only the products available in a customer's region avoids frustration when an item can't be shipped to them.
  • Different countries and regions have different expectations for how prices are displayed. For example, customers in Europe expect tax-inclusive prices, but customers in the United States expect tax to be added during checkout. Showing the wrong format creates confusion.
  • Some regions require specific pricing formats, tax displays, or product information. Localizing customers to the correct market helps you to meet these requirements.

On this page

Determining markets

Markets for a customer are automatically determined by using the following information:

  • When a customer first visits your store, their geographic location is determined by using their IP address, and they're matched to the appropriate market.
  • The customer's browser language preferences are used to determine which language to display, if you've configured multiple languages for that market.
  • If a customer arrives on a market-specific domain, subdomain, or subfolder (for example, yourstore.com/fr/), then they get the experience for that market.
  • If a customer manually chooses a different country or language by using your store's selectors, then their preference is saved and used for future visits.

Automatic redirection

Automatic redirection detects a customer's location when they visit your store and localizes them to the correct experience. This ensures that customers get the right experience without needing to manually select their country.

For example, a customer visits your yourstore.com for the first time. Their IP indicates that they're located in France, and have French language settings in their browser. Your customer is automatically redirected to yourstore.com/fr/, which has prices in EUR and content in French. This preference is saved, so on future visits the customer directed to the same experience, unless they manually change it.

Considerations for automatic redirection

Review the following considerations for using automatic redirection:

  • Automatic redirection only applies to the first page that a customer visits. After landing on a market-specific URL, customers stay on that domain throughout their session. If a returning customer has specified a different experience manually, then they aren't redirected.
  • Search engine crawlers are ignored in automatic redirection to ensure that your store meets SEO best practices.

Configure automatic redirection

You can choose whether you want to automatically or manually localize your customers. By default, automatic redirection is activated in new stores, and automatic language detection is deactivated. You can reactivate redirection if you've previously deactivated it.

Steps:

  1. From your Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Preferences.

  2. In the Automatic redirection section, activate automatic redirection.

  • Activating Country/region redirection automatically localizes customers to the correct location.
  • Activating Language redirection automatically displays your store to customers in their preferred language, if their preferred language is available in their market.
  1. Click Save.

Manual localization with country and language selectors

By adding country and language selectors to your store, you can let customers choose their preferred experience. These are necessary if you deactivate automatic redirection, but it's recommended to have these selectors even if automatic redirection is active, for the following cases:

  • Customers using VPNs or traveling might be detected in the wrong country.
  • Customers might prefer to shop in a different language than their browser default.
  • Customers might want to check pricing or product availability in a different market before making a purchase.
  • Customers might ship to a different address than their current location.

When a customer uses the country selector to manually switch to a different country, they're redirected to the domain, subdomain, or subfolder associated with the new market (if configured). The experience the customer receives is localized to the markets that they match, and their selection is saved for future visits.

Add selectors to your theme

Most Shopify themes include built-in country and language selectors, typically in the header or footer. They can be configured in your theme settings.

Steps:

  1. From your Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Themes.

  2. On your published theme, click Edit theme.

  3. Navigate to the header or footer section, depending on where you want to include your selector.

  4. Activate the Country/region selector and the Language selector.

  5. Click Save.

Checkout

A customer's shipping address determines the final experience they receive. For example, if a customer from the United States is shopping online in USD but enters a Canadian shipping address at checkout, then their experience is updated to match the Canada market, including currency and any other customizations that are applied to the Canada market.