Your store has been running for years. Conversions are good, customers are happy. But then your team realises that ten percent of traffic comes from Germany — and those visitors abandon at checkout because they don't see euro prices, can't find iDEAL or Klarna, and the site simply isn't in German. Sound familiar?
Growing internationally is the next step for many Dutch stores. But the reality on legacy platforms like WooCommerce, Magento, Lightspeed or Shopware is painful: separate installs per country, custom code for currency conversion, manual VAT settings per region and a tangle of plugins working against each other. That costs time, money and nerves.
After a migration to Shopify you have direct access to Shopify Markets — and that changes everything.
Shopify Markets is Shopify's built-in internationalisation platform that lets you serve multiple markets from a single backend. You don't need to set up a separate store per country, manage stand-alone domains via external tools, or call a developer for every currency tweak.
With Shopify Markets you set per market:
All from a single Shopify admin. No extra licences, no third parties, no extra maintenance.
Price is the most important conversion factor in international selling. A customer in Germany visiting your product page who sees a price in Dutch euros without VAT designation — bounces. Not because the product is wrong, but because the experience doesn't fit.
With Shopify Markets and Shopify Payments you set a local currency per market. Conversion runs automatically through live exchange rates, but you can also set fixed local prices per market — handy when your pricing strategy differs by country. Want to be a bit cheaper in Germany due to competitive pressure? No problem. Want a higher margin in the UK? You set that up in a few clicks.
Customers pay in their own currency. You receive payouts in your base currency. Simple, transparent and trust-building for the consumer.
Language is more than text. It's trust. A German customer who sees a fully German-language store — including checkout, email confirmations and return instructions — converts significantly better than when everything is in English or Dutch.
Shopify supports translation per market, linked to local domains or subdomains. If you set up a market for Germany, you can:
yourstore.de or de.yourstore.nl
Shopify Markets manages hreflang tags automatically, which is crucial for international SEO. Google understands which version of your store is relevant for which country — and that helps you grow organically in new markets.
Two of the biggest pain points for international e-commerce on legacy platforms are VAT compliance and payment methods. Both are handled by default on Shopify.
VAT: Shopify automatically calculates the correct VAT rate based on the customer's country. For EU sales the OSS scheme (One Stop Shop) applies once you cross the threshold. Shopify Markets accounts for this and gives you the reporting you need for tax filing.
Payment methods: every market has its own payment patterns. Dutch customers prefer iDEAL. Germans rely on Klarna or Lastschrift. Belgians use Bancontact. Brits want their credit card. With Shopify Payments you offer all these methods without separate integrations or extra transaction fees per payment method.
On a platform like WooCommerce or Magento you'd need a plugin for every extra payment method, a separate agreement with a payment provider, and technical configuration per market. On Shopify, this is included.
The question isn't whether you should migrate — that's clear for most growing stores. The question is how you do it without losing data, SEO rankings and customer trust.
That's exactly where Syncer.nl makes the difference. As a Shopify Plus Partner, Syncer has developed its own technology: Live Sync®. With it you migrate your store — whether you're on WooCommerce, Magento 2, Shopware 6 or Lightspeed — to Shopify without downtime and without data loss.
What Live Sync® takes on:
Customers don't need to do anything themselves. Syncer manages the entire process: from initial analysis to launch and aftercare. You focus on your business; Syncer makes sure the tech is right.
Every month you wait on a legacy platform is a month a competitor on Shopify is already working on their second or third foreign market. Shopify Markets lowers the barrier to international selling so dramatically that the ROI of a migration often pays back within six to twelve months — just from the rise in international conversions and savings on development and maintenance costs.
For comparison: on WooCommerce you quickly pay per market for WPML or Polylang (translation), WooCommerce Multi-Currency or Aelia (currency), extra payment gateway plugins, and regular custom work for VAT calculations. On Shopify, this is all built into the platform.
The first step is insight: what data do you have, how complex is your catalogue, which markets do you want to tackle after the migration? Syncer.nl offers a free migration scan in which they analyse your current situation and deliver a concrete plan. Not a non-binding chat, but a real technical analysis with a timeline and cost estimate.
After the migration you have direct access to Shopify Markets. You decide which countries to enter first. Shopify and Syncer take care of the rest.
Request your free migration scan →