I am in the process of setting up an online store offering artwork from the US. Initially I would like not to make my products available internationally until I gain some experience. Is there a setting to block international orders or do I address in my policies. Would this require me to manually fulfill all orders domestically in order to screen out the international orders? In the beginning I want to keep this simple until I get additional bandwidth and experience. Or is this approach foolish and should I just bite the bullet and embrace the additional complexity when opening?
Hi @Edrothe
Hope you’re having a great day!
Is there a setting to block international orders?
Yes, You can definitely specify which countries you want to ship to! This is determined by the Shipping Zones that you have set up in your shipping settings. See how to add a shipping zone.
Do you currently have two zones configured when you go to “Settings > Shipping and delivery > Manage Rates”? One for the domestic market and one for the international market?
If this is the case, you can simply remove the international zone by clicking on the “Remove” option, as shown in the screenshot below. This will prevent customers outside your domestic zone (my domestic zone here is Canada) from getting to the first page of your order, so they will not be able to complete their purchase:
Alternatively, if you would like to sell and ship to customers in the USA only, you can instead ‘Edit zone’ your International zone, and remove all other countries except for the USA. It looks like this:
This should limit what countries the customer can select during checkout.
Or is this approach foolish and should I just bite the bullet and embrace the additional complexity when opening?
Yes, You should. Here is why:
According to Statista, the average order value for international orders is $147, which is 17% higher than the average domestic sale.
Useful resources:
Michal,
Thank you so much for the quick reply and the in depth information you provided. I’ll look into this and configure these setting as needed.
Thanks again. - Ed
Hello @Edrothe ,
Artwork always has a great ambiance across the world.
As you are willing to sell the artwork only in specified regions i.e within the US(domestic), you can create a shipping zone under the shipping zone, add all the states with zip codes you want to ship/sell and exclude the rest of the world.
You can head to settings on the Shopify dashboard and under the shipping and delivery section, you can create the new zone and name it as the US, and add all the states in the USA and exclude the rest of the world. Also, disable the shipping rates for the rest of the world.
Hi @Edrothe
Hope you’re having a great day!
I’m happy to help. Good luck with the next steps.
If you have any further questions, please do reach out either here on the forum, or via a private message/email.
Thanks for the info. before i start marketing that we can ship worldwide i want to make sure i did it right. As long as I create a zone (pick the countries) and add a rate (calculated) then my customers can buy from those zones/countries, correct? Does it matter if i set up the international zones in the main section or in the “rest of the world” section?
Yes, you are right. As long as you create a shipping zone by selecting the required country and add shipping rate, your customers can buy from those zones/countries. For customers coming from other zone/country, a message will be displayed at checkout which says, “No shipping rates available, We don’t ship to Canada (for example)”. But, if you have created “rest of the world” shipping zone, the rates will be displayed to all customers accordingly.
Thank you.