Understanding market types

Markets can be created for different types of customers depending on how you sell. Each market type uses a different kind of condition to define its audience. You can combine market types in the same store to manage cross-border selling, wholesale, and retail from a single place.

Country or region markets

Country or region markets are displayed to customers based on their geographic location. These markets are used for cross-border and international selling.

When a customer visits your online store, their location is determined and they're matched to the appropriate country or region market. The customer then receives the experience that you've configured for that market, including currency, language, product availability, and theme customizations. A country or region market can contain a single country or multiple countries.

Customers from countries that aren't included in any active market can browse your store, but can't complete a purchase. The backup region experience is displayed for customers that don't match any active markets.

Single-country markets

Single-country markets contain one country or region. When you create a single-country market, the currency is automatically set to that country's local currency.

Use single-country markets when you have a specific selling strategy for a country. For example, if a significant portion of your international sales come from Germany, creating a dedicated Germany market lets you customize pricing, language, and content specifically for German customers.

Multi-country markets

Multi-country markets contain more than one country or region. When you create a multi-country market, the currency customization is set to use local currencies by default. Local currencies are activated so that each country displays prices in its own currency.

Use multi-country markets to group countries with a similar selling strategy. For example, if you have the same pricing, products, and shipping strategy for France, Germany, and Italy, then you can create a single Europe market rather than three separate markets.

Country or region market availability

Country or region markets are available on all Shopify plans. There's no limit to the number of country or region markets you can create.

Retail markets

Plan requirement

Retail markets are available for all Shopify plans. Customizing catalogs to use with retail markets requires Shopify POS Pro or the Plus plan.

Retail markets use POS locations as their condition. A retail market can target all POS locations, or specific POS locations. Retail customers are also part of a regional market based on the POS location's address, which means that a retail transaction can be associated with both a retail market and a country or region market.

You can use markets for selling in person in several different ways:

• Use catalogs to offer different products at different retail locations. For example, a flagship store might carry your full product line, but a pop-up shop carries only a curated selection.
• Use catalogs with custom pricing for specific retail locations. For example, stores in a high-cost region might have different pricing than stores elsewhere.
• Group retail locations into markets based on shared characteristics. For example, you could create a Premium Stores market for your flagship locations, and an Outlet Stores market for discount locations.

B2B markets

Plan requirement

On the Basic, Grow, and Advanced plans, you can assign up to 3 active catalogs across all your B2B markets. Assigning 3 catalogs to one B2B market uses the full limit. You need to remove or draft an existing assignment before you can add catalogs to another market. On the Shopify Plus plan, you can create an unlimited number of B2B market catalogs.

B2B markets let you create customized experiences specific to the wholesale company locations you sell to. B2B markets help you to more efficiently tailor your B2B buying experiences to groups of customers instead of having to manage them individually. If you're on the Shopify Plus plan, then you can also assign catalogs directly to company locations.

You can include company locations in B2B markets in three different ways:

• All company locations in all regions: Includes all company locations, regardless of where they're located.
• All company locations within a region: Includes all company locations shipping to addresses in the selected regions. As you add more company locations that meet this criteria, they're automatically matched to these markets.
• Specific company locations: Includes only the company locations you specify, regardless of where they're shipping to.

Customer experience determination in B2B with Markets

The experience that a company location receives on your online store is determined by the markets that they match.

For example, your store contains the following markets:

• Canada, a regional market.
• B2B All, a market that includes all your B2B markets.
• B2B All Canada, a market that includes all B2B markets in Canada.
• Company Location A, a market specifically for a single company location.
• Japan, a regional market.
• B2B All Japan, a market that includes all B2B markets in Japan.

The company location is in Canada, so it matches the Canada, B2B All, B2B All Canada, and Company Location A markets. The customer experience is determined on the customizations of the markets that they match.

Later, the same company location places an order, but is drop shipping the order directly to a customer in Japan. In this case, it still matches the B2B All and Company Location A markets. Based on the shipping address, they no longer match Canadian markets. Instead, they match the Japan and B2B All Japan markets, and their experience is determined accordingly.

If a company doesn't match any markets, then your store's backup region is used to determine the customer's experience.

Combining market types

You can use all three market types in the same store. Markets of different types can overlap, in which case the customer's experience is based on which settings are the most specific:

• B2B markets are more specific than retail markets. Retail markets are more specific than country or region markets.
• When a customer qualifies for markets of multiple types, the more specific market type takes priority for how your market customizations take effect.
• Catalogs from all applicable markets are combined, so customers can access products from all relevant catalogs.

For example, you have a Canada regional market, an All B2B market, and a Premium Retail market. When a B2B customer shops in Canada, their experience is a combination of the Canada regional experience and the B2B experience, with B2B-specific customizations taking priority where they conflict.

Submarkets across market types

A submarket can have parent markets of different market types. For example, a B2B Canada market is a submarket of both the Canada regional market and the All B2B market. When inheriting customizations:

• Customizations from the same market type parent are combined.
• Customizations from a different market type parent are overridden by the more specific type.

Learn more about inheritance and submarkets.