Hey,
So I live in Belgium and want to open a store that will sell exclusively in the USA but when I set the country/region selector to the USA a red warning box pops up.
I read it and I am not sure if I am allowed to open a USA store or not.
The reason I want to open the store in the USA is to avoid currency conversion fees since Shopify will convert it to Euro and I will have to reconvert it to USD.
I would use WISE to receive my payouts from Shopify.
Thanks
Hi, @Balazs98 . I’m happy to help you out with this! To clarify, will you be operating your business in the US at all? Also, are you only planning on selling to the US or will you be selling locally in Belgium as well?
You wouldn’t be able to use a US address as your business address unless it truly is your business address. The Shopify Terms of Service require you to maintain an accurate location based on your current jurisdiction. This means that while you can enter a US address there, if you are not located in the US you would be violating the Terms of Service and it would likely negatively impact your online store. It could also cause additional issues like the ones explained in the message you shared. For example, if you were planning on using Shopify Payments you would be asked to provide documentation that can support your address. Without that documentation you wouldn’t be able to use Shopify Payments.
All that being said, you are definitely still able to have a business based in Belgium that sells to the US as the target market for your online store. Since you’re planning on selling internationally I recommend looking into Shopify Markets. It’s a cross-border management tool that helps you identify, set up, and manage your international markets so that you can assign different settings to different regions. You can learn more about Shopify Markets here. We also have a guide here on international commerce you may find helpful.
Please let me know if you have any questions!
Thank you Erin, really appreciate your answer. I won’t be opening my store in the US then.
Just out of curiosity though, why can’t we simply have the option to turn off currency conversion? There is literally no other payment gateway that forces currency conversion on sellers. All I want is to accept payments in USD without Shopify converting it to Euro.
If I want to use Shopify the fees would be 4.9%, and then another 2% to reconvert Euro to USD to pay my suppliers + ads. So in total I am looking at 6.9% just to accept payments… which is completely insane.
Hi, @Balazs98 .
I completely understand why you’d want to reduce your fees as much as possible. I’m happy to pass this feedback on to our team who look into improvements we can make. I can definitely see why having more payout currency options would be beneficial for you.
Shopify charges currency converson fees when you accept payment in a currency that is different from your payout currency. At the moment, with Shopify Payments if your store is located in Belgium the only supported payout currency is Euros. You can see a list of which payout currencies are supported for each region here. All that being said, the currency conversion fee can be included in the price your customer’s pay so you don’t take on the full cost yourself. You can read more about how to set this up here. I know it doesn’t remove the fee entirely, but this is an option that can help.
Hello Erin and thank you.
I have a question related to this topic. I am a bit confused. hope you can help.
The situation is that I am located in Lebanon. but I have a Paypal account in the U.S. with my sister. can I let my sister log in from the US and fill out all the payment requirements? and would it be possible to work and log in from Lebanon so I can work on my store?
In addition, my billing is linked to my bank account in Jordan. can I still use this method for my monthly billing? and then have my sister’s Paypal account in the U.S. receive all payments for items sold in the U.S.
Note: I don’t carry any physical items, I am working with Print on demand for an online T-shirt business.
I appreciate your reply
Hi, @VisualAlc . Thank you for that context
I recommend that you use the location for where you are operating your business from. If this is your business and you are managing your business from Lebanon, where you’re located, this is the country I recommend you use for your store and payment settings. That being said, it’s best to refer to Shopify’s Terms of Service to ensure you’re complying with all of the policies explained there. I recommend reviewing this and seeking independent legal advice to be sure your business is set up correctly.
I also wanted to share a couple of additional resources to help you out with this. You can find a list of the available payment providers to use with Shopify in Lebanon here. You can also find more information on the payment methods you can use for your Shopify bills here.
Let me know if you have more questions!
Balazs98 what did you end up doing? In the same boat as you and 6.9% is just awful…
Hi Erin:
this is Mostafa from Egypt.
first I wish you a merry Christmas and Happy new year.
I have an urgent situation for building a shopify store targeting USA country only and I was struggling with that for couple of weeks due to shopify payment eligibility, and I was about to establish a LLC in US to be eligible but I discovered this also not enough, now I set my store to my address in Egypt and pic one of the approved providers in payment, and you said we can target US in Market page, that is good, how shopify will deal with my payments and how can I define my payout bank, by the way I am not intended to sell product from Egypt I already made a subscription with Zendrop which is an American company and they will handle the shipping in the US with the standard shipping rates.
thanks with your reply in advance
Hi, @Geneng . Thank you for all of that context!
How you receive payouts, and the bank account you receive payouts into, will depend on the payment gateway you are using for your store. It sounds like you’ve chosen to use a third party payment gateway based on your location and business needs. For more information about how and when this payment gateway will send payouts to you, you will need to speak with them directly or review their resources. They will have the most accurate information to help you further. You can also learn more about getting paid in general here.
Happy to help if you have more questions!
Hi Erin:
thanks for your reply, I have now 6 weeks struggling with the payment providers but all the trials are failed due to the impossible requirements they need, I am about to close my store so please can you make things easy for us and accept me to activate shopify payment, since you accept users from all over the world why don’t make shopify payments is an option for them instead go to third party providers by this way everything will be under shopify control.
I appreciate your help in this matter since I am losing money everyday for about 2 months.
thanks and with kind regard
Hi,
I’m also interested in setting my shop’s location to US because we have a warehouse operating there and a few customers have asked us to connect to them via Shopify Collective, BrandBoom and Faire which are all only available to shops set to the US. Most of our BTC customers are also US based.
Seems like a legitimate reason to base the shop out of the US? Keen to hear your suggestions
Thanks!
