Best practice for selling in multiple markets and languages

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Topic summary

A Norwegian business selling digital downloads globally is navigating Shopify’s multi-language and multi-market setup. The main challenge involves configuring different default languages per market—ideally Norwegian for Norway and English internationally—which Shopify’s current structure doesn’t directly support.

Initial Problem:

  • Using Translate & Adapt works for product descriptions, but page content translations (done in the editing tool) conflict when users select English while in the Norway market, causing mixed-language displays.

Resolution Status:

  • The original poster found an alternative setup that works, though specifics weren’t shared.
  • A Shopify staff member from the Translate & Adapt design team offered direct assistance to ensure optimal configuration and understand migration challenges from Wix.

Community Best Practices Shared:

  • Use a top-level domain (.com) with folder structure for markets (e.g., /en-gb/ for UK) rather than separate domains—critical for SEO consolidation.
  • Set primary market to English/USD as a “catch-all,” then define specific markets with localized languages and currencies.
  • Bulk translate everything (including metafields, URLs, SEO elements) using apps like Langshop with DeepL engine.
  • This approach creates properly indexed, region-specific content that boosts search rankings across multiple languages.

Additional Notes:

  • One user questioned whether setting English as default while only displaying Ukrainian/Russian in markets causes drawbacks.
  • Payment processing recommendations included using Stripe-supported solutions for multi-currency sales.
Summarized with AI on October 29. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

Hi,

We are building an online store, selling digital downloads worldwide.

Our business is located in Norway (hence our primary market will automatically be set to Norway), but we are facing some challenges when trying to implement several languages. Using Translate & Adapt is working well for translating product descriptions etc., but I struggle with having to select the same default language for the different markets. Ideally, the default language in Norway would be Norwegian, but for the International market, it would be English. But this is not possible, so we have English as the default language in Norway as well.

It works well if you select a different market (e.g. the US) and English, but if you select English while your are in Norway, the text on the page will be in Norwegian (because this is translated in the editing tool to fit this market), but the product descriptions will be in English, as this is fetched from the Translate app. I therefore struggle with translating the content on our website, as this has to be done in the editing tool, and not in the Translate app, right?

Have anyone set up a store with mulitple languages and multiple markets, and can help us finding best practice here? Do we have to consider having different domains, or are there any way to have different default languages for the different markets?

6 Likes
2

Hey @Ingrid1234 , could you get in touch via DM? I’m on the design team for Translate & Adapt and I’d like to understand the setup you have better.

3

Hi @Ingrid1234 , following up here. Happy to help

4

Hi!

I think I managed to find a different setup that worked, but for future customers, a good guide on what to use markets and what to use Localize/translations could be helpful. Coming from Wix, the setup in Shopify was a bit confusing at first to be honest, even for me with a technical background. Will ask if we run into any difficulties with the current setup.

5

That’s encouraging you’ve got things to a better place. Could we still connect on a call so I can understand your experiences - particularly given you’re migrating to Shopify? From your initial post I’d be concerned things aren’t setup as they ought to be. E.g. this sentence: "It works well if you select a different market (e.g. the US) and English, but if you select English while your are in Norway, the text on the page will be in Norwegian (because this is translated in the editing tool to fit this market), but the product descriptions will be in English, as this is fetched from the Translate app. "

Translate & Adapt is setup to translate from your default language into other languages. Then of you want to override a language by market, i.e. adapting, then you can - e.g. in the US you would write color but in the UK it would be colour. However it’s unlikely you’d ever use this capability for Norwegian, which is where I was wondering if things might not be totally clear. I’d like to help you get setup optimally and understand any confusion you came across. Rich

6

Hey @richbrown_staff

It seems this website doesn’t support DM, at least for me as a novice, does it?

And I have an additional question:
Is this setup good and there are no better ones, perhaps some nuances?

Our main language is Ukrainian, which doesn’t have ready translations for the Theme resourses. So I get translations from English but I don’t need English for our store to show at the moment. That’s why I set English as a default language in Settings-Languages and leave only Ukrainian and russian in Settings-Markets. May I have some drawbacks in this case?

7

If you aim to sell in multiple currencies, you should use Stripe-supported solutions.

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Rich, with a lot of trial and error this is the setup for a “non-American” site selling in various markets. I am a UK based business.

Firstly, get a TLD - .com if possible (but .net, .org or some other top level is fine)

Set the primary market to .com and the primary language to English. You can set USA to this market as well. I would also add Spanish to catch the Hispanic native speakers in the USA. Think of this as a ‘catch all’ market where any other market that is not defined will end up. Set the currency to USD as that’s pretty much the global currency.

Next, set up the markets you want to sell in, which in my case is the UK and a few others. ALWAYS use folder structure for this and not other domains, so for example Natural Pain Relief, Atopic Eczema and Dermatitis Products – 1936 Original would be the UK market. This is REALLY important for SEO as any native language translations will go to the subfolder, but ALL SEO value will be attributed to the same domain which will boost your rankings. Take a look on Google at site:1936original.com to see how we appear in other regions natively. Remember, going after Spanish keywords in the US for example is just as important (and easier) than English ones. Shoes and Zapatos are two separate keywords and search terms.

So, we set up the UK as a market using folder structure, so it should appear as /en-gb/ and have english set as the default language and GBP as the default currency. We use FBA for all fulfillment so have multiple warehouses set up on Shopify and we can then select which warehouse fulfills which region so we pull stock from the nearest. Any region that does not have a warehouse set will appear as out of stock, which is fine as we can’t fulfill that order but we do want the SEO value for that region. We also have ONLY English as the language here as, well, that’s what everyone speaks.

Let’s take the OP’s market of Norway as the next example to add.

So we add that again as a market, using folder structure, and set KR (I guess?) as the default currency and Norwegian as the default language. We can then set whatever the location is for this market for fulfillment and the delivery rates for it. Now, maybe some people speak Swedish on the border, or the odd person English. We add those two languages if applicable to this market. We don’t need to add them to the primary market unless we are expecting some Norwegian or Swedish speakers who are not in Norway to hit the site. There’s no need as the browser language (NOT THE LOCATION) is autodetected.

Now our site has several versions:

.com - US and anyone else not defined in a market

.com/en-gb/ - United Kingdom

.com/no-no/ - Norway, Norwegian

.com/no-se/ - Norway, Swedish

.com/no-gb/ - Norway, British

And so we go on defining markets we want to sell into, and markets that are important to us. For example in Europe German is a key language, as is Russian for everyone east of Germany although they all pay in Euros and come under Europe.

I use Language Translate with DeepL set as the engine. I bulk translate EVERYTHING, including metafields, URL’s, SEO titles and descriptions - everything.

Using this method you now have Google index you in Norway, UK, and USA in regionalised, language translated keywords that all point back to the same web site. This will rocket your SEO. It correctly creates the href lang tags that Google needs.

If you want to do a deep dive or make some training on it then please do get in touch. I think it’s one area of Shopify, or web design to be fair, that is poorly understood. Languages go hand in hand with markets and hand in hand with SEO and marketing strategies,

1 Like
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https://www.linkedin.com/posts/techtolia_activity-7269910858955177984-rU6M

Solution available now! You can find details in this article.

6 Likes
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Get the Langshop app and set it to use the DeepL engine. It handles Ukranian (and dare I say it, Russian) well

11

I have a couple of client stores wanting to do this. Can you help me out?

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Works :+1:

1 Like