You're running a 20% off promotion for Ramadan in the UAE. Customers in Germany see it too. They have no idea what Ramadan is, and now your European margins are getting clipped for no reason.

Shopify discounts by market fix this. Released in May 2026, the feature lets you assign any discount to specific regions, channels, or B2B segments — so promotions only reach the customers they're meant for. Before this, you either used workarounds (discount apps, separate stores, Shopify Functions hacks) or accepted that your promotions leaked across borders. Cross-border orders made up 16% of all Shopify orders during Black Friday/Cyber Monday 2025. That's a lot of customers potentially seeing discounts they were never meant to see.

What Are Shopify Discounts by Market?

Shopify Discounts by Market is a native feature that lets you assign any discount — code-based or automatic — to specific markets. A market in Shopify can be a country, a group of countries, a B2B company location, or a retail store location. Shopify released it on May 7, 2026, and it's available on all plans from Basic and above.

This means you can now:

Run a flash sale in one region without it hitting other markets
Create B2B-only pricing that retail customers never see
Offer a COD-market-specific promotion (like free shipping in Saudi Arabia) without affecting your prepaid markets
Set different discount amounts for different regions based on local purchasing power

The feature is available on all plans — Basic and above — as long as you're on the new version of Shopify Markets. If you set up Markets before 2024, you may need to migrate. Check Settings > Markets in your admin to confirm.

Step 1: Make Sure Shopify Markets Is Set Up

Discounts by Market requires Shopify Markets. If you're already selling internationally through Markets, skip ahead. If not, here's the quick version:

Go to Settings > Markets in your Shopify admin
Your domestic market (primary country) is already there by default
Click Add market to create international markets — you can group countries together (e.g., "GCC" for UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar) or keep them individual
For each market, configure your currency, language, and pricing rules

Think about market grouping before you start creating discounts. If you group all of Europe into one market, you can't run a promotion for France alone. But if you split every country into its own market, you'll have dozens to manage. Most merchants find a middle ground: group regions with similar buying behavior, and separate out markets where you run distinct promotions.

Step 2: Create or Edit a Discount

You can add market targeting to any new or existing discount. Here's the walkthrough:

Go to Discounts in your Shopify admin
Click Create discount (or open an existing one)
Choose your discount type — percentage off, fixed amount, buy X get Y, or free shipping all work with market targeting
Set up your discount rules as usual (amount, minimum purchase, usage limits, etc.)
Scroll to the Markets section on the Discount Details page
By default, the discount applies to all markets. To restrict it, deselect "All markets" and choose only the markets where this discount should apply
Click Add to confirm your market selection
Save the discount

That's it. Customers in unselected markets won't see the automatic discount or be able to use the code.

Step 3: Verify With View-As Mode

Shopify added a View-As mode in the Markets section that lets you preview how discounts resolve in context. Use it before any promotion goes live.

Go to Settings > Markets, select a market, and use the View-As preview to see exactly which discounts are active for that market. This catches mistakes before your customers find them for you. Especially useful when you have overlapping discounts — a global 10% off combined with a market-specific 20% off can stack in ways you didn't intend.

You can also use the new market and customer filters on the main Discounts list page. Filter by market to see every active discount for a specific region in one view. When you're managing promotions across five or six markets, this filter saves you from scrolling through your entire discount list.

Five Ways to Use Shopify Discounts by Market

Regional seasonal sales. Ramadan promotions for MENA markets, Diwali discounts for India, Back-to-School for North America — without each promotion bleeding into regions where it's irrelevant. Shopify merchants using Markets to sell internationally report 15-30% revenue increases within the first six months, partly because localized promotions convert better than generic global ones.

B2B-only wholesale pricing. If you sell both retail and wholesale through Shopify, you can create a B2B market and assign bulk discounts exclusively to it. Retail customers never see the wholesale price, and you don't need a separate store or a gated wholesale portal app. If you're new to wholesale on Shopify, our guide to B2B selling without Shopify Plus covers the full setup.

Free shipping by region. Shipping economics vary wildly by country. Offering free shipping in markets where your fulfillment costs are low (domestic, nearby countries) while keeping standard shipping in expensive-to-ship markets protects your margins. A free shipping discount scoped to your domestic market costs you $4-6 per order. That same discount applied globally could cost $25+ on international shipments. (Not sure where to set your threshold? See the free shipping threshold math.)

Market-entry promotions. Launching in a new country? Assign a generous welcome discount to that specific market without cutting into revenue from your established markets. Run it for 30 days, measure conversion rates, then decide whether to keep it.

Purchasing-power adjustments. A $10 discount in the US feels small. That same $10 in the Philippines or Egypt has real psychological weight. Instead of running one flat discount globally, create market-specific amounts that feel proportional to local purchasing power. You don't need to do complex currency math — just think about what feels meaningful in each market.

What Mistakes Should You Avoid With Market Discounts?

Forgetting to check existing discounts. When you turn on market targeting for new discounts, your old discounts still apply globally. Audit every active discount after you start using this feature. One untargeted 15% code can undo all your careful market segmentation.

Too many markets, too few discounts. Some merchants create 20+ individual country markets, then struggle to manage discount assignments across all of them. If you're running the same promotions across all of Southeast Asia, group those countries into one market. Only split them out when you genuinely need different discount strategies per country.

Ignoring currency conversion. A "10% off" percentage discount works the same everywhere. But a "$20 off" fixed-amount discount converts to local currency using your Markets exchange rate. Check what $20 becomes in each market's currency. If it rounds to an awkward number, consider creating separate fixed-amount discounts with clean local currency amounts.

Not testing from the customer's perspective. Use View-As mode, but also test the actual checkout flow. Place a test order from a VPN-simulated location in your target market. Confirm the discount appears, applies correctly, and doesn't stack with something unexpected.

When You Still Need a Third-Party App

Shopify's native Discounts by Market covers most use cases, but it has limits. You might still need an app if you want:

Different discount amounts per market on a single code — native Shopify lets you assign one discount to specific markets, but the discount amount stays the same. Apps like Marketwise Discount Ninja let you set different percentages or amounts per market on one code.
Automatic geo-pricing without discounts — if you want entirely different product prices per market (not discounts, but base pricing), use Shopify Markets' built-in price adjustments or an international pricing app.
Complex conditional logic — if your discount rules depend on combinations of market, customer tag, product collection, and cart value, Shopify Functions may be a better fit than the native discount UI.

For most merchants running straightforward regional promotions, the native feature is enough. Save the apps for edge cases.

Start With One Market, One Discount

You don't need to overhaul your entire discount strategy today. Pick your strongest international market — the one with the most orders and the most room for a localized promotion. Create one market-specific discount there. Measure conversion rate and average order value against your global baseline for two weeks. If it outperforms, expand to your next market. Cross-border ecommerce now accounts for over 30% of all online sales globally. The merchants winning that revenue aren't running the same blanket promotion everywhere — they're matching the offer to the market.