Creating and managing submarkets

A submarket is a market that operates within an existing market. Submarkets inherit the customizations of their parent market, so you can create more targeted experiences for specific customer groups without configuring every setting from scratch. When you create a submarket, it automatically inherits all the customizations of its parent market. You can then override specific settings for the submarket but keep the rest inherited.

For example, you create a Europe market with the following settings:

Currency set to EUR
A European product catalog assigned
A custom banner on your homepage for European customers

You then create a France submarket within Europe. France automatically inherits all of Europe's settings. You can then customize France with a French-language domain and a France-specific promotion, but the EUR currency and European catalog remain inherited.

Parent markets and submarkets

Markets form a hierarchy based on their conditions:

A market with broader conditions is a parent market of a market with more specific conditions.
A market with more specific conditions is a submarket of the broader market.

For example, if you have a North America market that includes the United States, Canada, and Mexico, and you then create a Canada market that includes only Canada, then Canada is a submarket of North America.

A submarket can have more than one parent market. For example, a B2B Canada market is a submarket of both a Canada regional market and an All B2B market. When this happens, inheritance follows specific rules based on the market type.

Inheritance rules for submarkets

Different customizations follow different inheritance rules when a submarket has one or more parent markets.

Currency

Submarkets inherit the currency of their parent market by default.
Customizing the currency on a submarket overrides the parent's currency.

If a submarket has multiple parent markets with different currencies, then the currency that best matches the customer's local currency is used. If no currencies match, then the most recently updated customization is prioritized.

Catalogs

Submarkets inherit the catalogs of their parent markets.
Catalog customizations are combined with parent market catalogs of the same market type, but override catalogs from a different market type.

If the same product exists in both a parent market and submarket catalog at different prices, then the submarket's price is used. If the same product exists in multiple parent catalogs at different prices, then the lowest price is displayed.

Online store theme

Submarkets inherit theme customizations from their parent markets.
Theme customizations from the same market type are combined, but override customizations from a different market type.

Checkout and customer accounts

Submarkets inherit checkout and account customizations from their parent markets.
Customizations from the same market type are combined, but override customizations from a different market type.

Domains and languages

Submarkets inherit domain and language settings from their parent market.
Customizing domain settings on a submarket overrides the parent market's settings.

If a submarket has multiple parent markets with different domain settings, then it inherits all of them. Customers stay on the same domain throughout their session.

Business entity

Submarkets inherit the business entity of their parent market.
Customizing the business entity on a submarket overrides the parent market's setting.

If multiple parents have different business entities, then the first one alphabetically is used.

Duties and taxes

Submarkets inherit duties and tax settings from their parent market.
Customizing duties and tax settings on a submarket overrides the parent market's settings.

If multiple parent markets have different duties and tax settings, then the setting best suited to the customer's location is used.

Create a submarket

If a new market is determined to be within an existing market, then it's considered a submarket.

Steps:

From your Shopify admin, go to Markets.
Click Create market.
In the Name section, enter a name for your new submarket.
Next to the name field, select the publishing status for your new market:

Select Active to display the new market to customers as soon as it's created.
Select Draft to preview the market before displaying it on your online store.

In the Includes section, click Add condition, and then add your conditions. The conditions that you enter should be within an existing market. For example, if you have an existing North America market, then you can select Canada to create a submarket.
In the Inherited section, review the customizations for your new market. These settings are inherited from the parent market.
Optional: Click next to a setting to override it for the submarket. After you make a change, the setting is moved from the Inherited section to the Customized section.
Click Save.

Using the View as feature to review submarkets

Because the relationship between markets and submarkets can be complex, the Graph view on the Markets page provides a visual representation of your market hierarchy.

The View as feature in graph view lets you review all the customizations that apply to a specific market, including inherited settings. For more information, refer to using the View as feature.

Deleting a submarket

After you delete a submarket, customers in the submarket's region receive the parent market experience instead. Other submarkets of the same parent market aren't affected.

When you delete a parent market, its submarkets no longer inherit settings from it. The submarkets continue to exist, but their inherited settings revert to your store's defaults.

For steps to delete a market, refer to delete a market.

Resolving customer experience when markets overlap

When a customer matches more than one market, the overlapping customizations are resolved into a single experience. The resolution follows these principles:

If a customer matches both a parent market and a submarket, then the submarket's customizations take priority where they've been explicitly set.
If a submarket hasn't customized a particular setting, then the parent market's customization is used.
When a submarket has parent markets of different types (for example, both a regional market and a B2B market), then customizations from the same market type are combined, but customizations from a different market type are overridden.