Shopify Markets Pro Review (2023)

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Like many in the ecommerce world, we saw Shopify Markets Pro announced during Shopifyโ€™s Winter โ€˜23 Edition. And just like all ecommerce professionals, we were excited to see what new international selling features were provided for Shopify users.

In this Shopify Markets Pro review, we cover everything from the pricing, features, and interesting new localization options in the ecommerce platform.

What is Shopify Markets Pro?

Shopify Markets Pro is an extension of the current Shopify Markets product, which is already available to most Shopify merchantsโ€”as long as you have a Basic, Shopify, Advanced, or Plus plan. Shopify Markets is available globally.

Shopify Markets Pro, on the other hand, is a new premium version of Shopify Markets, which opens up additional selling opportunities and automation for global commerce. It is currently in early access and eligible merchants can sign up to join the waitlist and be one of the first to use Markets Pro when it becomes available in Spring.

So, you have Shopify Markets and Shopify Markets Pro. As mentioned, Shopify Markets is free with most Shopify plans, so itโ€™s important to remember that you may not need to upgrade to Shopify Markets Pro, if the free features are enough for your international business needs.

Shopify Markets is known for features like:

  • Multi-market management from one admin
  • Limited label printing and customs documentation (DDU shipments only)
  • Duties and import taxes collection at checkout (for Plus and Advanced Shopify sellers)
  • Local payment options
  • Local currency acceptance
  • Custom pricing based on each market
  • Custom domain names and subdomains
  • Market-specific content
  • Multi-language management

If you upgrade to Shopify Markets Pro, hereโ€™s what you receive (on top of all the Shopify Markets features):

  • Local payment acquiring
  • Card fraud and chargeback protection
  • Tax registering, filing, and remitting to local governments
  • Advanced customs documentation and printing for delivery duty paid (DDP) labels
  • Negotiated rates for express worldwide shipping
  • Guaranteed duties that are collected and remitted to custom authorities and carriers on your behalf.
  • An expanded suite of local payment methods
  • Guaranteed foreign exchange on refunds so youโ€™re protected from currency volatility
  • Import restrictions management to ensure buyers can only see what they are allowed to purchase in their region

As you can see, thereโ€™s quite a bit to get excited about from Shopify Markets Pro. Many ecommerce merchants have waited a long time for features like global fraud protection and guaranteed duties handling. In the following sections, we explore the details of Shopify Markets Pro, and look into the cost and how to access the new product from Shopify.

How Much Does Shopify Markets Pro Cost?

Most features from Shopify Markets are free for all merchants with standard Shopify plans (with the exception of foreign exchange, and duties and import taxes only being available for those with Advanced and Plus accounts).

But what does it cost to obtain the extra features from Shopify Markets Pro?

When you upgrade to Markets Pro you get all the features included in Shopify Markets for free with an additional per transaction fee. Keep in mind that Shopify offers an all-one-one bundled price for Shopify Markets Pro, but you must walk through an application and approval review in the Markets admin before you can use it.

How to Access Shopify Markets Pro

As of right now, thereโ€™s a quick application process to obtain the features from Shopify Markets Pro. You must check your eligibility before adding it to your store.

Currently, Shopify Markets Pro is only available in early access to merchants operating in the United States. Shopify plans to expand to additional regions later this year.

In order to access Shopify Markets Pro, you must log into your Shopify account, navigate to the Markets tab in your settings and check eligibility. After your application is approved, youโ€™ll then have to choose a time to activate Markets Pro on your store. From there, you will be able to manage your global operations from your Markets dashboard in settings.

A Shopify Markets Pro Review

With an onslaught of impressive new features talked about in Shopify Editions Winter 2023, we want to dive deep into each one for all merchants to understand exactly what they can do.

From options to sell in multiple countries from one dashboard to calculations for duties and local taxes, thereโ€™s a lot to look forward to. Keep reading our Shopify Markets Pro review to learn all about the best features.

Sell to Multiple Countries with the Click of a Button

The idea behind Shopify Markets Pro is to serve as an all-in-one, intuitive platform for expanding an ecommerce store with the click of a button. Before Shopify launched Shopify Markets standard in February 2022, brands would have to create a completely separate websiteโ€”with a new domainโ€”then ensure the content on that site was localized. In addition, you needed to activate local currency conversions, a separate payment processor, and calculations for things like duties and taxes. All in, youโ€™d end up spending an incredible amount of time and money for development and market expansion.

Built off of Marketsโ€™ single shop back office management, the emergence of Shopify Markets Pro now removes the remaining barriers to selling in new markets.

Upon activating Markets Pro, the geolocation app is automatically downloaded to ensure buyers shop in their local experience. Ensuring they shop in their local currency, with preferred payment methods, localized address forms and duty and import taxes calculated and collected at checkout. Not only does Pro automatically enable a great localized experience for buyers, but it also handles regional tax complexity and international shipping labels with duties paid upfront. End-to-end, Pro handles each step so that brands only need to make the one decision to sell internationally, instead of the thousand decisions on how to do it.

Global Selling from One Store

There are several options to choose when running an international ecommerce store. One way to go about it is to sell from multiple stores with targeted content and translations.

On the other hand, you could sell from one internationalized online shop. This store is responsive to whoever uses it, so someone in Mexico would see a Spanish language site, yet someone in the US views the same site and sees it in English. Not only that, but things like storefront content and taxes get adjusted based on the user.

Regardless of the site configuration, Shopify Markets Pro lets you manage the entire operation from one convenient dashboard. You can go to the Shopify dashboard and switch from region to region. This allows you to view analytics from each market and change settings and designs depending on whatโ€™s needed.

All-in-one Localization

The all-in-one localization of Shopify Markets Pro means that you can flip a switch for one region and activate:

  • Tax and duty calculations
  • Features for cross-border complexities (duty and tax compliances, import restrictions, global fraud protection, foreign exchange risk, and more)
  • Fast global shipping at cost-effective rates
  • Local regulation compliance

All of that with the click of a button.

Duty and import Tax Calculations

To expand upon the calculations for duties and taxes, we want to talk about what that means exactly.

To begin, every market you open will abide by different duties and import tax rules, and these rules not only differ by country but also by product type. Buyers in Germany will encounter different duty and tax rules compared to buyers in New Zealand.

All of those taxes and duties are collected at checkout. You also might wonder what happens with tax registering, filing, and remitting. International business gets complicated once you start thinking about all the tax laws and regulationsโ€”especially when you have to file for dozens of markets.

Shopify Markets Pro makes this a breeze by automating the process, no action required from merchants.

That includes:

  • International tax registering
  • International tax filing
  • International tax remitting
  • Duties and import taxes are guaranteed so that you donโ€™t have to worry about discrepancies at the border or with carriers
  • Import taxes
  • HS codes are automatically assigned to your product catalog so need to to worry about product classification
  • Markets Pro collects duties and taxes on your behalf and remits them to the proper carriers and tax authorities with no action required from you

Regulation Compliance

On top of local taxes, cross-border logistics, and duties, thereโ€™s the issue of local regulations. Are you even allowed to sell your product in certain regions? Are there restrictions or requirements to disclose certain information?

The last thing you want is to hurt buyer trust with their purchases getting refused by customs agencies at the border..

As you may assume, regulations get messy. They change regularly, so itโ€™s tricky to keep up with whatโ€™s allowed in a place like Germany or France, not to mention the smaller municipalities. For instance, laws on selling jewelry with precious stones vary widely depending on the country (or even city). You also might run into regulations on something as simple as clothing materials.

Some of these regulations have to do with tariffs and keeping manufacturing within borders, but every so often youโ€™re dealing with products that are deemed dangerous and what is deemed dangerous differs per region, which could get you into legal trouble for selling.

Thatโ€™s where Shopify Markets Pro comes into play. Instead of researching all regional regulations yourself, Shopify Markets Pro does the work for you, cross-checking the products you currently sell in your shop and flagging certain items that may not work in particular countries. Youโ€™ll also find that Shopify Markets Pro keeps these regulations updated, so you mustnโ€™t worry about any upcoming elections where the new politicians change laws about your product.

Hereโ€™s what to expect from Shopify Markets Pro in terms of import regulations:

  • Checking for product compliance in every region you expand to
  • Automatically hiding restricted items from your catalogs in regions where buyers are not allowed to purchase them
  • Updating lists of compliances to ensure youโ€™re notified of a change if you sell a product in a certain region
  • You can check which items are hidden from which regions in your Shopify admin

Overall, Shopify Markets Pro makes it incredibly simple for every type of ecommerce entrepreneur to remain compliant as they expand into new markets.

Streamlined Shipping and Cross-border Logistics

This is another one of the main features that you donโ€™t receive with the standard Shopify Markets product. Shopify Markets Pro provides a wonderful solution to optimize the delivery experience and cross-border logistics issues.

When selling internationally, youโ€™re bound to encounter things like duties, tariffs, and logistical peculiarities that might not even make any sense. It all depends on which borders your products cross, and itโ€™s up to you to ensure the items cross those borders.

Otherwise, you may find that shipments get slowed down enroute to customers, or they get confiscated by the authorities for a period of time. Either way, youโ€™re left with parcels stuck at customs, or worse, a lost product and frustrated customers who want refunds.

Ecommerce merchants need to prepare for cross-border logistics and partner with a shipping provider who ensures fast delivery.

Hereโ€™s how Shopify Markets Pro solves cross-border logistics problems:

  • Easy label printing and customs documentation management from the Shopify admin; the labels also include prepaid duties (called DDP or delivery duty paid) to ensure your customers donโ€™t get hit with surprise fees
  • Express shipping to regions around the globe between 2 to 5 days, with package tracking and pre-customs clearance so that parcels donโ€™t get lost and move through the border quickly; this means you have a guarantee that you can pass along to your customers, telling them close to exactly when they can expect the orderโ€”thereโ€™s also no super long wait times
  • Discounted express shipping rates to bring down the costs of typically expensive cross-border shipments
  • Flexible fulfillment options so merchants can choose to print labels directly from shopify, choose from tens of pre-integrated logistics partners, or build an API integration directly with their warehouse

During our Shopify Markets Pro review, we found the streamlined shipping features to be some of the most valuable aspects of the suite. Thatโ€™s because shipping overseas almost always brings about issues (and itโ€™s expensive). With Shopify Markets Pro, you manage everything from one dashboard while Shopify handles the complexities of your shipments; and, of course, you reap the benefits of shipping discounts.

Internationalized Storefront and Checkout

The localization of your checkout module enables customers to purchase your products without feeling as if itโ€™s a one-size-fits-all shopping cart and checkout. Far too often we see that merchants forget to translate or customize checkouts based on the region. Thatโ€™s not only jarring to the customer, but it risks losing the sale entirely.

Our Shopify Markets Pro review showed that the tool takes care of your checkout and entire storefront by offering an internationalized experience.

With a situation like this, itโ€™s actually possible to run one store for the entire world, since things like payment methods, content, and address forms respond to who is using the website.

Take a look at our favorite features for checkout localization:

  • Localized address forms to ensure the right fields are there to type in information (For instance, Canadian addresses are formatted differently than addresses in the United Statesโ€”so youโ€™ll want to provide the appropriate form fields); these forms are provided by Google Autocomplete
  • Guaranteed duties, with calculated import taxes and duties while the customer checks out from your store (thereโ€™s no need for you to walk through remittance or reconciliationโ€”itโ€™s all handled by Shopify Markets Pro)
  • Localized payment methods; these are essentially payment processors that work anywhere around the globe, where you can accept the most common credit cards and alternative payment options; some of the processors include PayPa, Klarna, Sofort and iDeal, with more continually being added throughout the year.

Throughout our Shopify Markets Pro review, we found that the enhancements to localized checkout is one of the most desirable features, especially considering the complexities of duties and import taxes.

Customer Experiences Tailored to Each Market

Weโ€™ve talked a bit about how customer experiences are tailored to each market when using Shopify Markets Pro, but thereโ€™s more to this nifty feature.

You always have access to over 130+ local currencies, and the payment methods offered through Shopify Markets Pro drive conversion at checkout. Not only that, but you get guaranteed foreign exchange rates. Which means, you donโ€™t have to worry about currency fluctuations on refunds.

Fraud Protection and Financial Risk Management

International business is bound to bring about more fraud and chargebacks. Why? Because youโ€™re opening up your business to more countries, so thereโ€™s logically a higher chance of encountering fraudsters in different countries. And the difficulty is that you may not be as smart at spotting fraud when theyโ€™re using unique tactics from their own countries.

It appears that Shopify Markets Pro is making big moves to ensure merchants remain confident about extending their product lines into other countries. After all, fraud is frustrating, and could discourage brands from selling elsewhere besides their own country.

With Shopify Markets Pro, merchants have fraud protection to safeguard them from chargebacks.

It is worth keeping in mind, however, that your fraud protection does not extend to โ€œfriendly fraud,โ€ which is a term for when buyers claim they didnโ€™t receive orders but actually did.

Our Shopify Markets Pro Review

We hope you enjoyed our Shopify Markets Pro review as much as we enjoyed learning about the cool new features from Shopifyโ€™s Winter โ€˜23 Edition.

As a reminder, all paying Shopify customers (besides those with the Starter Plan) receive most of the Shopify Markets features for free. And Shopify Markets Pro is in early access in the United States right now, at least for those who are eligible. With Pro, brands get access to all the free features of Shopify Markets with additional features made to accelerate global growth.

Overall, we like Shopify Markets Pro quite a bit for those ecommerce merchants trying to accelerate growth and boost conversions, all without the hassles of usual international business. Shopify Markets Pro provides everything from tax and duty compliance, fraud protection, discounted express shipping with guaranteed duties paid upfront and much more!

Please let us know in the comments if youโ€™ve tried Shopify Markets in the past. What are you most excited about with Shopify Markets Pro?

Joe Warnimont

Joe Warnimont is a Chicago-based writer who focuses on eCommerce tools, WordPress, and social media. When not fishing or practicing yoga, he's collecting stamps at national parks (even though that's mainly for children). Check out Joe's portfolio to contact him and view past work.

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