Selling internationally means handling multiple currencies. Done right, it doubles your addressable market. Done wrong, it destroys your unit economics in ways you won't notice until Q3 board review.
Two approaches: automatic vs local
Automatic currency conversion: shows prices in the visitor's local currency based on live FX rates. Simple to implement (Shopify does it natively). Downside: FX fluctuations mean your margins swing by 3–8%.
Local pricing: you set explicit prices per market. UK gets £X, EU gets €Y, US gets $Z. Downside: more work to maintain. Upside: complete margin control.
Our recommendation: for stores under $1M revenue, automatic conversion. Over $1M, local pricing per major market.
The trap: charging in local currency, receiving in your home currency
Most payment gateways convert the customer's charge to your home currency at their own FX rate, which is 1–3% worse than mid-market. On thin margins, this is real money.
Fix: use a multi-currency payment provider that lets you hold balances in multiple currencies:
- Stripe with local acquiring in each major market
- Adyen for enterprise multi-currency
- Wise Business for smaller international operators
Tax and duties
The single biggest post-purchase disaster is duties/taxes charged at delivery that the customer didn't expect. Their $40 order arrives with a $18 customs bill. They refuse delivery. You eat the shipping cost both ways.
Two ways to handle:
- DDP (Delivered Duty Paid): you calculate and collect the local tax + duty at checkout. Customer pays inclusive total. Requires proper tax integration.
- DDU (Delivered Duty Unpaid): customer pays customs at delivery. Cheaper for you, worse experience for them.
For a professional operation, DDP is the standard.
Tools that handle this well:
- Zonos — best-in-class tax + duty calculation
- Avalara — enterprise-grade
- Shopify Markets — solid built-in for Shopify stores
Shipping
Local shipping cost is usually the single biggest determinant of international conversion rate. Options:
- Ship from your home market: simplest, slow, expensive for the customer
- Ship from regional warehouses: faster, cheaper per shipment, needs local 3PL setup
- Dropship from suppliers in each market: cheapest, hardest to control quality
Most brands start with #1, graduate to #2 when a market hits $250K+ annual revenue.
Localised trust signals
Currency alone isn't enough. Localised trust signals matter too:
- Local phone number (Skype numbers or Twilio work fine)
- Local address (a proper P.O. box or virtual office)
- Local language customer support (even if it's just English + AI translation)
- Reviews from customers in the target market
- Payment methods the local market prefers (iDEAL in Netherlands, SEPA across EU, PIX in Brazil)
What we ship
For Shopify clients: Shopify Markets + Zonos + Advanced Shopify plan. About $500/month in tooling for a store shipping to 15+ countries.
For custom ecommerce clients: Stripe with local acquiring + Avalara + custom currency logic in the checkout. Higher engineering cost, better margin protection at scale.
The playbook
- Start with your top 3 markets by traffic (from GA4). Don't spread thin.
- Enable multi-currency display first. See if conversion moves.
- Add local payment methods for those markets.
- Consider a local warehouse once any market crosses $250K annual revenue.
- Expand to more markets only after you've mastered the first three.
International commerce is a compounding advantage. Get it right, and your addressable market genuinely doubles or triples. Get it wrong, and you burn a year of engineering time on infrastructure that doesn't move the needle.
Not sure where to start? Book a call — we've shipped international commerce for clients across three continents.