Shopify Expansion Stores vs Shopify Markets: Picking the Right Global Growth Model

If your brand sells across multiple countries, sustainable growth depends on more than just reaching new markets. Customers expect pricing in their own currency, checkout in their own language, and fulfillment that feels local.

For Shopify merchants, that usually means making a big decision: Should you set up multiple Expansion Stores for different regions, or should you centralize operations under Shopify Markets?

Before we dive in, let’s clear up a common misconception: Expansion Stores aren’t a technical feature from Shopify. They’re simply multiple Shopify stores created and managed under one organization. Think of it like creating two Google accounts: you still have two separate environments. “Expansion Stores” is just the shorthand that Shopify and merchants use for this setup.

Shopify Markets, on the other hand, lets you serve multiple regions with a single store, with tools for currency, language, domains, duties, and fulfillment logic built in.

Choosing the wrong model can come at a cost: bloated IT stacks, compliance headaches, higher conversion fees, or even stalled growth. This guide breaks down both approaches, complete with enterprise use cases, comparison tables, and a practical decision checklist, so you can choose the framework that fits your global growth strategy best

An Expansion Store is an additional Shopify store you create for a new geography under the same organization account. Merchants call them “Expansion Stores” because they’re most often created when a brand expands into new geographies.

Let’s take an example of a fashion retailer headquartered in France that wants to launch in the UK and the US. Instead of running it under one Shopify storefront, they create:

• Store 1: “brand.fr” for France (EUR, French copy, local payments). Managed in Shopify as “store-fr.myshopify.com”.
• Store 2: “brand.co.uk” for the UK (GBP, English copy, UK payment methods). Managed in Shopify as “store-gb.myshopify.com”.
• Store 3: “brand.com” for the US (USD, US fulfillment). Managed in Shopify as “store-us.myshopify.com”.

Each store is fully independent, with regional language, native checkout, payouts, taxes, catalog, and analytics. It’s the same platform and admin experience, but just a separate environment with its own settings, catalog, and workflows.

Shopify Expansion Stores give merchants maximum control, but that control comes with duplication and operational overhead. They are often the right choice when governance, compliance, or regional autonomy is a higher priority than speed or simplicity.

Launching an Expansion Store simply means creating another Shopify store and configuring it for a specific region. The exact flow depends on whether you’re on Shopify Plus or a standard plan:

For Shopify Plus merchants:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Organization.
2. Click “Create store”.
3. The new store will be under your organization, but it’s still a separate Shopify environment with its own admin, apps, and configurations.

For merchants on all other plans:

1. Go to your Shopify dashboard and create a new store.
2. Use the same brand details but configure the store for the region you’re targeting.
3. You’ll manage it independently, just like your main store.

Once your new store is created, the setup is the same:

1. Assign a domain for the region (e.g., “brand.co.uk”, “brand.ca”). Your domain strategy directly affects SEO.
2. Load your catalog into the new store: You can either clone your main catalog for consistency or curate/reprice products specifically for the new region.
3. Configure payments and taxes: Align with the local entity and bank accounts where needed. This step is where Expansion Stores provides the biggest advantage— payouts, invoicing, and taxes can be handled locally without conversion fees.
4. Set up fulfillment rule: Connect regional warehouses, carriers, and shipping logic. Expansion Stores lets you isolate stock by region so orders don’t cross borders unintentionally.
5. Integrate apps and systems (ERP, OMS, ESP, loyalty, analytics): Each store needs its own integrations, which can increase IT overhead.
6. Localize content: Duplicate or localize content across homepages, product descriptions, blogs, and campaigns. Each store is a self-contained environment, so you choose between duplicating content or creating fully localized experiences.

When running Shopify Expansion Stores, the challenge is in keeping multiple Shopify stores seamless for the shopper. Without the right systems in place, customers may land on the wrong version of your site or face friction when switching between stores.

That’s exactly what Orbe solves. Orbe detects your customer’s geolocation and language from their very first visit, then redirects them to the correct store. Instead of managing clunky “store pickers” or risking abandoned sessions, you deliver a native, seamless experience, whether you’re running 2, 10, or 20 Expansion Stores.

Shopify Markets is Shopify’s native framework for selling internationally through a single store. Instead of managing multiple Expansion Stores, you control currencies, domains, languages, taxes, and duties inside one admin. This keeps your global operations centralized and lean.

Shopify recently started rebranding this as “Shopify International.” The distinction is subtle but important:

• Shopify International: The full global commerce toolkit (Markets, B2B, POS, Markets Pro).
• Shopify Markets: The feature set for creating custom regional experiences within one store.

Even though Shopify pushes the “International” label, most merchants and agencies still say “Markets,” because it was the starting point and remains the base of Shopify’s cross-border strategy.

Let’s say you run a French fashion brand. With Expansion Stores, you’d manage “brand.fr”, “brand.co.uk”, and “brand.com” as separate shops. With Markets, you run just one Shopify store:

• A French shopper sees EUR pricing, French content, and local carriers.
• A UK shopper sees GBP, English content, and a duty-included checkout.
• A US shopper sees USD, US-specific promos, and domestic fulfillment.

You still have one catalog, one set of apps, and one analytics view. The regional differences live inside Shopify Markets settings, not in separate stores.

Shopify Markets are the right setup if you:

• Operate under one legal entity and don’t need separate tax IDs or bank accounts per region. Multi-entity setups are possible but limited, since Shopify Markets doesn’t fully separate tax IDs or bank accounts per region.
• Want to launch new markets quickly without spinning up extra stores.
• Prioritize SEO efficiency since Shopify Markets lets you use subfolders and generates hreflang tags automatically.
• Accept Shopify Payments and its currency conversion fees for simplicity.
• Run fulfillment centrally or need only light order-routing rules across warehouses.
• Prefer one global team over regional silos.

Markets are designed for speed and simplicity. You gain efficiency by centralizing everything (catalog, campaigns, workflows), but you sacrifice some of the granular control that Expansion Stores offer.

Creating a market in Shopify is faster than setting up Expansion Stores, but you still need to configure it carefully to avoid hidden friction later. Shopify Markets includes a set of rules that define how a specific group of customers (by country, company, or channel) experience your store.

Here is a step-by-step guide on setting up Shopify Markets:

1. Create a market from your Shopify admin. Go to Markets → Create Market.
2. Name your market and decide whether to launch it as Active (live immediately) or Draft (preview first).
3. Define who it applies to:
• Regional markets: By country or region (e.g., UK, EU).
• B2B markets: By company location.
• Retail markets: By POS location.
4. Review inherited settings: By default, the new market pulls in your store’s base configuration.
5. Customize where needed:
• Currency and pricing.
• Languages and translations.
• Taxes and duties.
• Payment and shipping methods.
• Domains or subfolders for SEO.
6. Save and publish when you’re ready for customers to see the localized version.

While you can set up a new regional experience in minutes, the challenge is in making sure it actually feels local. Automatic translations often miss nuance, and duplicating campaigns for each region can quickly get messy.

This is where Orbe helps. Instead of siloing content or relying on clunky translation apps, Orbe:

• Detects your customer’s language, location, and currency on the first visit.
• Redirects them to the right experience automatically.
• Welcomes them with a localized popup that confirms they’re shopping in the right place..

This way, your store scales internationally without creating parallel operations. Customers land in the right language and region by default, and you maintain one clean stack.

Expansion Stores give you maximum independence at the cost of duplication, while Markets give you speed and centralization, but with limitations around entities, governance, and payments. 

The table below breaks down the difference between the two so you can see exactly where each model fits best.