To set up automatic storefront redirection in your Shopify store, you can follow these steps. This functionality helps ensure that your customers see the most relevant content based on their geographic location or browser language settings, enhancing user experience and potentially increasing conversion rates.
How to Activate Automatic Redirection
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Access Settings:
- Go to your Shopify admin.
- Navigate to Settings > Markets.
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Adjust Preferences:
- Click on Preferences within the Markets section.
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Activate Country/Region Redirection:
- In the Automatic redirection section, find the Country/region redirection option.
- Activate this option to enable automatic redirection based on the customer’s geolocation.
By activating country/region redirection, Shopify automatically displays region-specific content such as pricing, currency, and language to match the visitor's location.
Additional Settings for Enhanced Customer Experience
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Language Redirection:
- Still within the Automatic redirection section, you can also activate Language redirection.
- This setting detects the browser language of your customer and switches the storefront to that language if available.
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Manual Selector Options:
- If your theme does not include a country or language selector, consider adding one through a third-party app from the Shopify App Store. This allows customers to manually switch between languages or countries if they wish.
Considerations for Different Market Configurations
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Markets with Dedicated Domains:
- For markets set up with separate domains (e.g., .com for the US and .ca for Canada), automatic redirection will redirect customers to the appropriate domain based on their location.
- This setup benefits from being indexed by search engines for each specific market.
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Markets with Shared Domains:
- If markets share the same domain, the content displayed (like currency and language) adjusts based on the customer’s location, though these pages are not indexed by search engines as separate entries.
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EU Specific Redirection:
- In the European Union, customers accessing a site with a country code top-level domain (ccTLD) are not automatically redirected to another domain to comply with local legislation. You can use third-party apps to suggest appropriate regional sites without enforcing automatic redirection.
Steps to Implement Language Redirection
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Enable Language Redirection:
- In the Automatic redirection section of the Markets Preferences, turn on Language redirection.
- Ensure you have added and published the necessary languages to your store.
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Check and Test:
- Verify that all settings are correctly configured.
- Test the redirections by accessing your store from different geographic and language settings to ensure the experience aligns with your expectations.
By carefully setting up and managing these redirections, you can tailor your Shopify store to better serve international customers, providing a localized shopping experience that can help boost engagement and sales.