For an Australian Shopify business, the first Managed Markets question is whether the operating business is eligible. A supported destination country and an eligible merchant origin are different things. Establish the business entity, fulfilment locations and target customers before planning a rollout.
Shopify's current overview lists continental United States businesses and certain Canadian and United Kingdom stores as eligible origins. It also requires Basic or higher, an online store and Shopify Payments. An Australian destination listing does not establish availability for an Australian-based merchant.
Choose the appropriate international operating model
Shopify Markets provides tools for selling internationally while the merchant remains merchant of record. Managed Markets adds Global-e as merchant of record for eligible transactions, taking on specified cross-border responsibilities for a per-order fee. The standalone Global-e app is a separate service. Compare the responsibilities and eligibility of the actual option proposed to you.
Write down who owns each part of an order: product information, customer communication, duty and tax handling, fulfilment, payout reconciliation and returns. Assign tax and customs questions to the relevant provider and your business advisers before activation. A service's defined coverage still needs an operating owner inside your business.
Check the requirements against your own store
The current requirements cover origin-country details, store currency, product information, shipping and product restrictions. Managed Markets excludes B2B orders and does not support subscriptions for its international orders. Match the proposed model to your actual customers and products.
| Decision | Bring this evidence | Agree before launch |
|---|---|---|
| Merchant eligibility | Business and fulfilment locations, entity structure and current account eligibility | The service available to this operating business |
| Product suitability | Representative products, origins, classifications and restricted-item checks | Which products can ship to each destination |
| Customer promise | Delivery options, checkout prices and customer-facing policies | What is paid at checkout and what the customer can expect |
| Fulfilment and exceptions | Carrier or fulfilment-provider support and typical order examples | How labels, holds, cancellations and address issues are handled |
| Returns and support | Return locations, customer-service workflow and cost records | Who responds, supplies labels and reconciles refunds |
Review duties and delivery promises precisely
Managed Markets collects duties and import taxes at checkout in destinations where delivered duty paid is supported. Delivered duty unpaid remains available where DDP is unsupported. A blanket statement that every DDU shipment has ended misses those exceptions. Verify the actual destination and shipping service.
Check a representative order from product information through checkout, fulfilment and the resulting records. Include an exception and a return in the agreed review. Shopify's fulfilment guidance sets out shipping-label and order-management considerations. Changes involving live checkout, payment handling or customer data need explicit scope and approval.
For EU orders, the requirements describe cancellation and return policies and the merchant's continuing work: responding to customers, buying return labels and managing return costs. Put those jobs into the delivery plan rather than assuming that a managed service removes them.
Use real order costs before expanding further
Build a worksheet for representative products and destinations using current fees, carrier quotes, fulfilment costs, exchange-rate assumptions and observed return costs. Record the currency, date and source of each input. Estimate staff handling time separately from cash expenditure.
Agree the conditions for continuing, adjusting or pausing a market: suitable products, workable fulfilment, support readiness and an understood order contribution. Treat a proposed margin or conversion improvement as an assumption until actual orders and comparable periods support it. Expansion to more countries is a decision to earn with evidence.
Make ongoing ownership part of the scope
Shopify design and development can support the customer journey, while ongoing maintenance needs clear priorities, capacity, timing and approvals. Specialist international operations, integrations, monitoring and tax or customs work require an agreed scope and the appropriate expertise.
The 12 Boards delivery case describes catalogue consolidation and redirects. It is a useful example of documenting delivered work clearly. International rollout acceptance should likewise be tied to the requirements and evidence for your own operating model.