Help Needed: Opening Shopify Store in France for Japanese Market

[cissie]

Hello Shopify Community,

I am in the process of setting up my e-commerce business. I am based in France, but my target market is exclusively Japan. I need some advice on whether to open a Shopify account in France or Japan. Here are my concerns:

1. Language Preferences: If I open the account in France, will the primary language of the site default to French? I want my store to be entirely in Japanese.

2. Plugin Compatibility: Are there specific plugins, especially for Japanese delivery services, that might not be compatible if I set up my account in France?

3. Banking Requirements: If I decide to open the account with Shopify Japan, do I need to have a Japanese bank account? If so, this mean I need to establish a subsidiary in Japan which makes things a bit more challenging (note : the products will be exported from France to Japan, stored in Japan and sent directly from Japan to customers)

Any insights or advice from those who have experience in managing cross-border Shopify stores would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance for your help!

Best regards,

[sahilsharma9515]

Hi @cissie Hope you have great sales journey ahead.

• Language Preferences: You can open the account in france and then create a market for other countries i.e in your case its japan and set the prices according to japan's market.
• Plugin Compatibility: Once you will setup the markets then you can easily use the plugins for different market according to your needs and yes the japan's carriers app will work perfectly fine.
• Banking Requirements: You don't need the separate bank account as you can use shopify payments in both the countries and shopify payments are supported in both the markets, i.e. france and japan, so your france account will work. Also note: The conversion rates will be applied and there are some charges from shopify end as well as you are going to use shopify payments i.e. 2%.

If you need any other information, please feel free to ask the same, and even if you need help in setting up the things I would love to help with the same as well.

Hopefully it will help you. If yes then Please don't forget hit Like and Mark it as solution!

Best Regards

Sahil

[cissie]

Hi @sahilsharma9515 ,

Thanks for your response.

Plugin Compatibility: Have you heard of Komoju Payments? I’ve noticed they offer different services in Europe and Japan. Unfortunately for Europe they don't provide mobile payments, carrier payments... Do you know if the apps adapt to the country being targeted or to the country where the company is registered?

Banking Requirements: What if I want to get paid in both Yen and Euros, (in order also to avoid conversion fees at payout) ? Is it possible to link two different French accounts (one in euros, one in Yen) under the same account with the Basic Shopify Plan? If customers pay in Yen but my company is based in France, will they be charged an "international transaction fee" by their bank?

Thank you!

[sahilsharma9515]

Hi @cissie 

Plugin Compatibility: I have seen that this payment provider Komoju Payments is not registered with shopify payments, so you need to connect with with them and see if they can provide any support.

Banking Requirements: Yes it is possible that you can provide different payment option to your customer but adding 2 accounts is not possible and you need to provide the conversion charges.

If you need any other information, please feel free to ask the same, and even if you need help in setting up the things I would love to help with the same as well.

Hopefully it will help you. If yes then Please don't forget hit Like and Mark it as solution!

Best Regards

Sahil

[cissie]

Hi Sahil,

Thank you for your response,

I'm am still confused with the banking requirements :

I understand that I can connect only one account, however if I connect a bank account in Yen :

Is it possible to do so, so that I avoid conversion fees ?

If customers pay in Yen but my company is based in France, will they be charged an "international transaction fee" by their bank?

Another question, if I open a shopify account with my french company, buys a template, then open a branch or subsidiary in Japan, do I need another shopify account or can everything work under the same account ? Do I need to buy another time the template ?

Thank you for your help

Best regards