How to Sell Internationally: A Complete Guide for Shopify and WooCommerce Stores

Start Selling Smoke Shop Products Internationally:

A step-by-step guide from the SmokeDrop team. Covers everything from installing SmokeDrop and browsing the international catalog, to setting up markets, currency, custom themes, and shipping rates for 194 countries.

Why Sell Internationally

Selling internationally is the single biggest unlocked growth lever for most online stores. Domestic markets get crowded; international demand for the products in the SmokeDrop catalog is strong and underserved. The blocker has always been logistics — figuring out shipping, customs, and fulfillment in 100+ countries is a nightmare most retailers avoid.

SmokeDrop removes that blocker. Every product tagged “International” in the catalog ships to 194 countries through SmokeDrop’s fulfillment network, with per-country, per-weight rates already negotiated. As a retailer, you add the products to your store, configure your markets, and the rest is handled.

This guide walks through the entire setup end-to-end — for both Shopify and WooCommerce stores.

How International Fulfillment Works with SmokeDrop

Before getting into setup, here’s the model in plain terms:

• You focus on selling. Add international products to your store, market them, and process orders normally.
• SmokeDrop handles fulfillment. When an international order comes in, SmokeDrop’s fulfillment partner ships directly to your customer — typically 7–14 business days via tracked international delivery.
• Shipping rates are pre-negotiated per country. No flat “international” fee that loses money on expensive destinations. Every country has its own rate table covering 54 weight tiers, from 1 oz to 30 lb.
• You set your own product prices. SmokeDrop’s wholesale price is your cost. What you charge customers is your decision.

That’s it. No carrier negotiations, no fulfillment centers abroad, no customs paperwork. The rest of this guide covers how to configure your store to actually sell these products.

Step 1 — Install SmokeDrop

SmokeDrop integrates natively with both Shopify and WooCommerce. Installation takes about 10 minutes.

How to Install with Shopify

How to Install with WooCommerce

Step 2 — Browse the International Catalog

Once SmokeDrop is installed, the full catalog is available in your dashboard. Not every product ships internationally — some are US-only due to carrier restrictions or supplier agreements. International-eligible products are clearly marked.

How to find international products

1. Open the SmokeDrop dashboard.
2. In the product catalog, apply the filter “Available internationally” (sometimes labeled “International”).
3. The catalog refreshes to show only products that ship to all 194 supported countries.
4. Use additional filters to narrow by category, wholesale price, supplier, or margin potential.

Step 3 — Add International Products to Your Store

Once you’ve found international products you want to sell, add them to your store in bulk or one at a time.

Shopify

• From the SmokeDrop dashboard, select products and click “Push to Shopify.”
• Set your retail price (or use a markup rule based on wholesale cost).
• SmokeDrop automatically syncs product details, images, variants, inventory, and weight.
• Weight matters — it’s what determines the shipping rate at checkout. Make sure weight values are accurate; the international rate lookup uses them.

WooCommerce

• Select products in the SmokeDrop dashboard and click “Push to WooCommerce.”
• The plugin creates the products in WooCommerce with weight, dimensions, images, and stock synced automatically.
• Set your retail price (or configure a global markup rule in the plugin settings).

Step 4 — Set Up International Markets

A “market” tells your store which countries you sell to, and how each country is configured (currency, language, theme, tax behavior). Both Shopify and WooCommerce support multi-market selling — but they call it different things.

Shopify — Markets

• Go to Settings → Markets.
• You have a Primary market (usually your home country, e.g. United States) and can add additional markets.
• Create an “International” market and add the countries you want to sell to.
• Shopify lets you add up to 50 countries per market on standard plans. For broad international selling, add all 194 SmokeDrop-supported countries.
• Important: remove your home country from the International market — a country should only appear in one market to avoid conflicts.

WooCommerce — Shipping Zones

• Go to WooCommerce → Settings → Shipping.
• Create a shipping zone per country (or per region) you want to sell to.
• For each zone, set the shipping methods and rates. The SmokeDrop plugin imports the per-country rate tables automatically — see Step 8.
• For multi-currency display, use a WooCommerce multi-currency plugin (more on this in Step 5).

Which countries to start with

It’s tempting to enable all 194 countries at once. For most stores, a focused launch is better. Consider starting with high-demand English-speaking and EU markets:

• Tier 1 launch: Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Germany, France, Netherlands, Spain, Italy.
• Tier 2 expansion: Rest of EU (Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Austria, Belgium, etc.), Japan, South Korea, Singapore, UAE, Israel.
• Tier 3 expansion: Latin America, Asia, Middle East, and the remaining ~150 supported countries.

Add countries based on where your traffic and orders actually come from — check your analytics after the first month.

Step 5 — Handle Currency the Right Way

Currency is one of the biggest conversion levers for international selling — and the most misunderstood. Setting expectations up front: checkout will be in USD. Here’s why, and how to make the most of it.

So what does this mean in practice?

There are two separate things happening with currency, and for this catalog they will not match:

1. Display currency — what prices look like on your product pages (e.g. “AU$32.99” or “€18.50”). You can fully control this with an app.
2. Checkout currency — what the customer is actually charged. For high-risk stores, this is always USD.

So international customers browse in their local currency, then see USD at checkout. This is the standard pattern for every international store in this product category — it is not unique to you, and it does not prevent international sales. It just requires honest communication.

Set up display-only currency

Install a currency converter app so customers see prices in their local currency while browsing. The app auto-detects the visitor’s location and shows the converted price. At checkout, the price reverts to USD with a clear note.

• Shopify: Currency Converter Bear, BUCKS Currency Converter PRO++, Beast Currency Converter, or MLV Auto Currency Switcher (all ~$10/month, all explicitly support display-only + USD checkout).
• WooCommerce: CURCY – Multi Currency for WooCommerce, WooCommerce Multi Currency, or WPML Multi-Currency.

Communicate the currency switch clearly

The #1 cause of international checkout abandonment is surprise — a customer sees AU$32.99 on the product page, then USD$21.99 at checkout and bails. Prevent this with clear messaging before checkout:

• Add a note on the cart page: “Prices shown in your local currency for reference. Checkout processes in USD — your bank converts at their rate.”
• Mention it in your international FAQ and order confirmation email.
• Consider absorbing the foreign-transaction fee your customers’ banks charge — it’s usually 1–3%, and a small price headline reduction (“Bank fees on us — 3% auto-applied discount”) outperforms surprising them.

What about long-term options?

True multi-currency checkout for high-risk categories does exist, but it requires offshore merchant accounts (often through eMerchantBroker, PaymentCloud, or an international acquiring bank). These settle in multiple currencies but carry higher fees, longer setup (4–8 weeks), stricter underwriting, and ongoing reserve requirements. Most retailers don’t pursue this until international volume justifies the overhead — typically $50K+/month in international sales.

Step 6 — Custom Theme for International Markets

One of the most powerful (and underused) features of international selling is customizing the storefront per market. Different countries have different expectations, languages, payment methods, and trust signals. A single global theme leaves conversion on the table.

Shopify — Theme customization per market

Shopify lets you customize your theme separately for each market — no code required:

1. Go to Online Store → Themes → Customize.
2. In the top-left dropdown (which usually says “Global” or shows your primary market), switch to your International market.
3. Any changes you make now apply only to international visitors — your home market is untouched.
4. Customize the announcement bar, hero section, featured collections, footer content, and navigation per market.

What to customize for international visitors

• Announcement bar: “Free shipping over $X” or “Now shipping to [Country]”.
• Trust signals: international shipping badges, estimated delivery times, customs/duties disclosure.
• Navigation menus: remove US-only pages, add international shipping info, FAQ, currency note.
• Footer: contact info, return policy (international returns are different from domestic), support hours in multiple time zones.
• Featured collections: spotlight the international products specifically.

WooCommerce — per-market themes

WooCommerce doesn’t have built-in per-market theming like Shopify, but you can achieve the same with plugins:

• Geotargeting plugins (Geotargeting WP, Country Based Restrictions for WooCommerce) detect visitor country and switch content.
• WPML or Polylang handle full translation + per-language theme/content.
• Use a page builder (Elementor, Breakdance) with conditional display rules for country/region.

When to customize per market (and when not to)

Don’t go overboard on day one. Start with one international theme that’s a slight variation of your main theme — different announcement bar, different footer, different featured collection. Customize further per country only when you have a clear winner in your analytics (e.g. Germany is 25% of sales → build a German-specific theme with translated content).

Step 7 — When to Use Custom Domains

For most stores, you don’t need a separate domain or subfolder per country at launch. A single domain with market-aware theming and currency is enough to start. Custom domains/subfolders become worthwhile when you have real volume in a specific market.

The options, from simplest to most advanced

SEO guidance

Per-country subfolders (like /de) only help SEO when they have genuinely localized content — translated product descriptions, German blog posts, local reviews. Without that, subfolders split your SEO equity across duplicate pages and can hurt rankings. Don’t add subfolders until you have the content to fill them.

Rule of thumb: promote a country to its own market with a subfolder when it’s consistently 10%+ of your traffic or revenue. Before that, a single domain with auto-detection is more efficient.

Step 8 — Shipping Rates & Pricing

International shipping rates with SmokeDrop are per-country and per-weight — every destination has its own rate table covering 54 weight tiers (from 1 oz up to 30 lb). There are no flat “rest of world” fees and no inflated regional averages. This keeps shipping cost honest: a customer in Germany pays what shipping to Germany actually costs.

Use the lookup tool below to find exact shipping for any product weight to any destination.

Pricing strategy: passthrough vs. margin

You have two ways to charge for shipping:

• Passthrough (recommended): Charge the customer exactly what shipping costs, rounded up to the next $0.99. No markup. Best for conversion — international customers are price-sensitive about shipping and compare against local options.
• Shipping margin: Add a 10–20% markup to shipping. Adds revenue per order but increases cart abandonment. Consider this only if your product margins are thin and you need shipping to contribute to profit.

Most successful international stores use passthrough pricing and make their profit on the product itself. Shipping is treated as cost-recovery, not a profit center.

Building shipping rates into your store

• Shopify: The SmokeDrop app auto-syncs the per-country rate tables to your Shopify shipping zones. No manual rate entry.
• WooCommerce: The SmokeDrop plugin imports the rate tables as WooCommerce shipping zones with flat-rate-per-weight methods. Configure once, sync updates automatically when rates change.

Step 9 — Customs, Duties & Taxes

International orders may be subject to customs duties, import taxes, and VAT depending on the destination country. SmokeDrop’s shipping service is DDU (Delivered Duty Unpaid) — meaning the shipping rate covers transportation only, and the customer is responsible for any duties or taxes owed when the package arrives.

What this means for your store

• Be transparent with customers before they order. Add a note on your cart page or international FAQ: “Import duties and taxes may apply on delivery, depending on your country.”
• Some countries (UK, EU) charge VAT/GST on imports above a threshold. Others (Australia) have a low-value threshold below which no tax applies. These rules change — keep your FAQ general rather than country-specific.
• Make sure your return policy accounts for international orders. Returns across borders are expensive; many stores offer store credit instead of physical returns for international orders.

FAQ

Shipping rates shown in this guide reflect SmokeDrop’s current international rate tables and may adjust as carrier costs change. Live rates at checkout always reflect the current pricing. This guide was last updated by the SmokeDrop team.