Since the early days of Shopify, the platform has made it clear that it wants to make ecommerce better for everyone. Making this a reality has often been hedged around taking all the functionality and features you would normally have to integrate into your ecommerce platform of choice, and instead simply making deals with providers and implementing their capabilities as native Shopify features.
In the early days of ecommerce, getting your store set up to sell in international markets required a lot of careful planning and setup. Today, however, this is much easier. Often, it requires enabling some features in your Shopify admin, making a few tweaks, and you’re good to go.
That said, selling internationally on Shopify can go a few different ways, depending on which feature set you need, your business model and size, and whether you decide you want to stick with what’s available natively or integrate with a different provider altogether.
In this blog, we’ll break down the sometimes confusing differences between Shopify Markets, Shopify Managed Markets, and Global-e, a separate international shipping/sales partner that can instead be integrated with your Shopify store.
Decision Framework: Shopify Markets vs. Managed Markets vs. Global-e
Choosing the best international infrastructure really comes down to ensuring a platform's features align with your company's budget, size, available team resources, and global ambitions/expansion goals. This guide is here to help technical founders, ecommerce directors, and operations managers identify the archetype that best suits their current growth journey.
Here’s how each tool stacks up and which kind of business each is best suited for.
Shopify Markets
Shopify Markets (formerly known as Shopify’s International sales tools) is a built-in Shopify feature that lets merchants manage multiple international markets from a single store. It provides out-of-the-box localization, like local currency pricing, language translation, and regional domains, through a self-service dashboard.
When using Shopify Markets, you’re taking a DIY approach to selling to international customers: you control pricing, taxes, shipping, and compliance in each market, enabling quick global expansion but also requiring you to handle the operational complexities of international sales.
While using Shopify Markets allows international orders to be placed on a localized online store with local payment methods, display prices with local exchange rates in multiple currencies, and charge duties and import taxes, you remain the merchant of record for all sales.
This means you are legally responsible for every sale made to your global audience. Foreign taxes, fraud, and compliance issues are your responsibility, which could complicate matters if anything comes up or you make a mistake when setting up your localized pricing and settings.
Who is Shopify Markets best for?
If you’re running a small-to-mid-sized business that generates steady domestic revenue and is now considering dipping your toes into cross-border sales, Shopify Markets is the easiest way to get started.
It offers a cost-effective way to set up "proof-of-concept" international subfolders (e.g., domain.com/en-uk) to test global demand, with the trade-off being the need to manually configure everything and the understanding that you’re responsible for things like custom documentation and taxes.
Shopify Managed Markets
Shopify Managed Markets, formerly known as Shopify Markets Pro, is essentially the upgraded version of Shopify Markets. Currently available to merchants in the United States but in early access for Canadians, it acts as Shopify’s turnkey cross-border solution, powered by Global-e as the merchant of record.
When enabled, Shopify–via Global-e–takes over many of the complexities of international selling, such as tax registration and remittance, duty collection, compliance with local laws, and accepting local payment methods, while you continue to run everything from your Shopify admin.
When an international customer places an order, Global-e acts as a silent, invisible reseller. The customer legally purchases the item from Global-e, which instantaneously purchases it from the merchant. This mechanism entirely offloads the bureaucratic burden of global commerce. Global-e assumes full responsibility for international tax registration, customs compliance, and the remittance of duties to local authorities.
As an extra bonus, Managed Markets also provides chargeback and fraud protection, guarantees foreign exchange rates for 30 days to protect merchants from currency fluctuations during return windows, and enforces Delivery Duty Paid (DDP) shipping through partnerships with DHL and UPS.
It’s a plug-and-play service with transaction fees instead of a subscription for merchants who want to outsource the most complex parts of global ecommerce without leaving the Shopify ecosystem.
Who is Shopify Managed Markets best for?
If you’re running a mid-market brand with a proven international market fit but are beginning to struggle with the operational weight of global logistics, this is probably the option for you (as long as you’re willing to trade a slight percentage of your margin in exchange for the total operational automation that this tool offers you).
With Managed Markets, you’ll be able to instantly activate localized, compliant sales in over 150 countries. It provides the peace of mind of guaranteed DDP shipping and comprehensive chargeback protection, all while managing operations exclusively from the familiar Shopify dashboard without requiring new software and/or training.
Global-e Direct Integration
Global-e is a third-party platform offering a fully managed, end-to-end cross-border ecommerce solution. It serves as a one-stop internationalization partner, localizing the shopping experience for over 200 markets and takes care of all aspects of selling globally, from multi-currency pricing and local payment options to duty calculations, international shipping logistics, and compliance with foreign taxes/regulations.
Just like with its Managed Markets integration, Global-e becomes the merchant of record and shoulders the legal and operational responsibilities for global sales, consolidating your international orders into a single payout.
The difference between using Managed Markets and directly integrating with Global-e lies in the ability to better customize your experience with the provider. Managed Markets provides a templated version of the Global-e engine for the mass market, but the Direct Integration offers a fully managed, white-glove service.
It removes the limitations of Managed Markets, providing access to an expanded network of global shipping carriers beyond just DHL and UPS. The routing software automatically selects the most cost-effective and efficient provider based on destination, price, and delivery window.
The Direct Integration also offers bespoke catalogue restriction management. Instead of automatically banning broad categories of products from international sale, Global-e specialists work directly with the brand to manually review product compliance, ensuring maximum catalogue availability.
This tier also includes a dedicated Customer Success Manager (CSM) to provide strategic market intelligence, and a dedicated, localized international returns portal designed to streamline reverse logistics for both the consumer and the brand.
Who is a Global-e Direct Integration best for?
As your brand shifts from mid-market to enterprise-sized, a direct integration between Global-e and your store might be worth considering. Large, global businesses operate highly complex logistical networks and require granular control over their localized customer experiences.
For a large enterprise, the automated, one-size-fits-all restrictions of Shopify Managed Markets are often too rigid. Instead, a Global-e Direct Integration allows you to leverage dedicated account management, negotiate custom carrier rates across an extensive network of global logistics providers, and implement sophisticated, multi-warehouse routing.
Big enterprises also require frictionless reverse logistics, so utilizing Global-e's dedicated international returns portal to maintain premium customer satisfaction across 200+ markets will be the obvious choice.
Implementing Shopify Markets
Getting started with Shopify Markets is relatively simple. First, enable the feature in your Shopify Admin by heading to “Markets” in the sidebar and clicking “Create Market.”
In the “Includes” section, you can add conditions that define which of your customers your new market is shown to. Here is where you decide if your market will be regional, B2B, or retail (adding Shopify POS locations). In the “Inherited” section, you can select which settings are inherited from your store defaults or from a parent market (if applicable).
For settings that you don’t want to be inherited from your store’s defaults or from parent markets, you can customize the following on a per-market basis:
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Currency
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Catalogues
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Store theme
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Checkout
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Domain/language
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Duties and taxes
Markets inherit the checkout and accounts customizations of their parent markets by default. Market checkout and accounts customizations combine with those of the parent markets of the same market type. Market checkout and account customizations override those of parent markets of a different market type, however.
Implementing Shopify Managed Markets (Shopify Markets Pro)
To get started with Managed Markets, first check that you meet the eligibility requirements. As of now, you must be a merchant based in the continental U.S. to use Markets Pro. You also need to use Shopify Payments as your payment gateway, and your store should be on the Basic plan or higher. Also, review the list of prohibited products and countries for Managed Markets, as certain items or regions may not be supported due to regulatory issues.
If eligible, you will see a “Managed Markets” option, followed by a link labelled “Start selling internationally.” After activation, Shopify will create a new Market in your settings, often named “Rest of World” (containing all eligible countries you’re not explicitly managing separately).
You can rename this market and remove any countries you might not want to sell to. Consider creating markets for individual countries, as this will create a subfolder that will help with your store’s SEO. Shopify will apply a bunch of configurations automatically, so at this point it’s up to you to decide what you need to update/change in terms of pricing adjustments, Harmonized System (HS) codes, local payment methods, shipping integration(s) and checkout messaging.
When everything is set up as you’d like, you can save your settings and start selling!
Implementing Global-e Shopify Integration
Since Global-e is an independent SaaS solution, implementing it involves working with Global-e outside of Shopify and then implementing their technology into your Shopify store. Here’s how to get started:
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Engage with Global-e’s team: Visit Global-e’s website and contact their sales team or request a demo. They will discuss your business needs, international goals, and transaction volume. Global-e typically works with merchants of various sizes, but since their model is revenue-share, they will want to ensure your volume justifies the partnership.
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Install the Global-e Shopify apps and set up credentials: Once you sign on with Global-e, you’ll need to install both the CrossBorder and Global-e Payments apps. During setup, you will be given a GUID and a Merchant ID that connect your Shopify store with Global-e’s systems.
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Catalogue and pricing configuration: When the installation on your end is complete, you’ll need to contact your Global-e Integration Manager so that they can prepare your merchant environment. They will use your Shopify product feed, but you may need to provide additional info: for example, HS codes for all products, any product restrictions, and possibly localized product descriptions/prices if you choose.
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Payments and checkout integration: Similar to step 3, you’ll need to work with your Global-e Integration Manager to get all your payment methods and checkout options sorted.
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Logistics and fulfillment setup: Discuss and decide how you will handle shipping with Global-e. Generally, you have two options:
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Ship yourself with Global-e labels: Global-e can provide you with shipping labels for each order. You fulfill the order in Shopify as usual, but for shipping, you’ll either get a label from the Global-e dashboard or via their app integration. You stick it on the package and hand it off to the carrier. The label might be addressed to a local Global-e facility or directly to the customer overseas (Global-e manages the routing).
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Fulfillment to a Global-e hub: In some cases, Global-e might ask you to send all international orders to a local hub or partner warehouse, and they will forward them internationally from there. This can simplify customs since they can handle clearance in bulk.
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Decide how returns are handled: Clarify who handles returns. Global-e offers a returns management service in which international returns can be sent to a local address in the customer’s country and then either consolidated back to you or liquidated locally. Decide whether you want to enable the Global-e returns portal for your customers, or do so yourself or with another third-party option.
Once you’ve worked with your Global-e rep to get everything set up and linked, turn on the integration in Shopify and get your team up to speed on how to handle international orders from both your Shopify and Global-e dashboards.
Conclusion
There’s no single “best” way to sell internationally on Shopify, only the setup that best matches your team, margins, and size.
Shopify Markets is a great starting point for brands that want to test cross-border demand without adding another platform. Shopify Managed Markets is a smart middle ground for U.S. merchants who want to offload compliance and operational complexity, and a direct Global-e integration makes the most sense for larger brands that need more flexibility, support, and control at scale. Thankfully, Shopify makes it easy to get started with whatever option you choose.
Need help determining which option will work best for you or setting up your chosen option? We at Blue Badger have the Shopify expertise you need to ensure your international expansion goes smoothly, no matter how you approach it. Get in touch with us today to learn more.
