Expand globally with international domains

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Topic summary

Shopify now allows merchants on select plans to assign individual domains to specific countries/regions, enabling localized browsing with default currencies and languages. For example, a US merchant can use shop.com for USD/English and shop.ca (or ca.shop.com) for CAD/English/French.

Key Features:

  • Automatic hreflang tag implementation for SEO
  • Geolocation app for redirecting visitors to appropriate domains
  • Requires Shopify Payments multi-currency support
  • Merchants must purchase/manage their own top-level domains or subdomains
  • Recently added subfolder support (e.g., /en-us, /en-gb) as alternative to subdomains

Important Limitations:

  • Cannot display different products or content per domain natively (requires custom liquid code)
  • All payments currently settle to single payout account regardless of currency
  • Separate stores still needed for different legal entities or separate bank accounts
  • Buyers can only checkout in currency matching their shipping location
  • Hreflang tag visibility and customization remain ongoing development areas

Common Questions Addressed:

  • Shipping profiles can route orders to appropriate warehouses
  • Manual or automatic currency conversion available
  • Third-party translation apps needed for multiple languages
  • Social media sales channels may require separate apps for multi-currency feeds

The feature aims to simplify international expansion within a single Shopify store, though some merchants still require multiple stores for complex multi-entity operations.

Summarized with AI on November 8. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
12

Hi Cez1, thanks for sharing your experience! Would you mind sharing a little more?

  1. With multiple languages in one site, how does the URL work?
  1. Can multiple subdomains accept the same currency?

Thanks in advance!