What is primary store? (Domains)

[svalkyrie23]

I want to setup 3 markets. Australia, US, UK. My site isnt live yet and I want to go with Australia first.

I want to assign .com to US, and .con/au to Australia, .com/uk to UK.

Question is, do I set my primary market as US and then additional markets as UK and AU with the subfolders?

My business is based in Australia but use POD internationally.

Just not sure if I can open with Australia as an additional market or if it needs to be my primary market can I give it a subfolder or does it need to be my primary .com domain?

[Victoria4762 · Accepted solution]

Hello, @svalkyrie23

To set up your site with multiple markets (Australia, US, UK), here’s a concise strategy:

Primary Market: Decide if you want your primary market to be the US (using .com) or Australia (using .com/au).

Domain Structure:

US: yoursite.com
Australia: yoursite.com/au
UK: yoursite.com/uk
Primary Domain: If your business is based in Australia and you're starting there first, you might want to make Australia your primary market initially:

Primary: yoursite.com/au
Additional: yoursite.com and yoursite.com/uk
Future Transition: You can later switch the primary market to the US if needed and keep the subfolders for AU and UK.

SEO and User Experience: Ensure proper redirects and hreflang tags for SEO.

You can start with Australia as the primary market and give it a subfolder, or directly start with the US as the primary market and add AU and UK as subfolders. Both approaches are viable.

I hope this information will be helpful for you

Best Regards

Victoria Hubb

[svalkyrie23]

Wow @Victoria4762 this is really insightful! Thank you so much for sharing in great detail 🙂 do you know what the perks are to a primary market? What does it offer? If I swapped from AU to US 🤔

if I setup the domains and folders as you suggested I didnt think I would need to update SEO if I switched from AU primary market to US?

[svalkyrie23]

@Victoria4762 When I look at Australia, I can't set a subfolder. Only "Use a single domain" or "use multiple domains".  When I add the US and GB market, then I can set subfolders for them.

I want US to keep .com
AU to be .com/au
UK to be .com/gb

I also cannot set just "au" and "gb".  Shopify adds "en-au" by deafult. I cannot change this, is this correct?