Shopify Singapore guide (2026): setup, payments and growth tips
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Singapore’s e-commerce market continues to grow, helped by strong digital infrastructure and consistent government support.
Gross merchandise volume reached US$8.2 billion in 2022 and experts expect it to grow to around US$11 billion by the end of 2025, with cross-border orders accounting for a significant share of that expansion.
As more local brands sell overseas, Shopify has become a popular platform for expanding beyond Singapore. Regional market data shows that around 33% of online stores across Asia-Pacific use Shopify, highlighting its popularity among merchants focused on cross-border e-commerce rather than just domestic sales.
Selling internationally on Shopify brings financial trade-offs. How sellers set up payments, FX and payouts determines how much revenue turns into usable cash.
This guide is for Singapore e-commerce sellers and growing brands using Shopify Singapore or considering it. It explains how Shopify works locally, which setup choices matter early and how to manage international growth without unnecessary costs or payment issues.
Key takeaways:
- Shopify simplifies global selling for Singapore businesses: Shopify empowers Singapore merchants to sell globally with ease. Its user-friendly platform supports local payments and multi-currency sales, allowing businesses to reach customers across markets with minimal technical knowledge
- Set up your Shopify store for international success early: Shopify lets you make key decisions about payment methods, store currencies and market targets. These choices will shape how smoothly your business handles international payments, avoiding unnecessary costs and complications down the road
- Grow your Shopify store globally with smart marketing strategies: Tailor your marketing to regional preferences, use Shopify Markets to offer targeted regional offerings and leverage social commerce and paid advertising to expand your reach
- Align payments and fulfillment with customer expectations: Shopify’s multi-currency capabilities, combined with local payment methods, ensure a seamless checkout experience for your customers
- WorldFirst supports Shopify sellers with seamless multi-currency management: World Account lets Singapore Shopify sellers receive and hold payments in 20+ currencies without forced conversion. This improves cash flow control and allows supplier payments in 100+ currencies with no delays or high fees
Open a World Account and integrate it with your Shopify store to handle cross-border sales in the currencies your customers prefer.
What is Shopify?
Shopify is an e-commerce platform that helps businesses build and manage their online stores. It offers tools for creating a professional store, managing inventory, processing payments and handling shipping.
With its user-friendly interface, Shopify allows businesses to focus on growth without needing deep technical expertise.
Why Shopify works for Singapore businesses
Singapore offers a perfect environment for cross-border e-commerce. The country’s advanced logistics, efficient regulations and access to both Asian and Western markets make it an ideal hub for international trade.
Shopify complements this by offering an easy-to-use platform that empowers businesses to sell globally.
Many Singapore businesses use Shopify to:
- Launch a professional online store with minimal effort
- Sell to customers in multiple countries, supporting multiple currencies and languages
- Connect with global marketplaces and payment systems
- Expand their business without needing technical expertise
Shopify works exceptionally well for direct-to-consumer brands, exporters selling niche products and businesses already receiving orders from the US, Europe or Australia.
Shopify Singapore setup: what to get right early
Setting up a Shopify store for a Singapore-based business involves more than just designing a homepage and adding products.
Early decisions about how your store will take payments, handle currencies and align with your markets will determine how money flows into your bank as your business grows.
Store and currency decisions that matter
Your choices around store currency, target markets and payment configurations influence everything that comes next. For example, enabling Shopify Payments in Singapore lets you accept a wide range of payment methods, including major credit and debit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay and more.
Shopify Payments also supports multiple currencies when international sales tools are activated, letting customers see prices and pay in their own currency. If you skip careful currency setup upfront, you could end up with orders in USD, EUR or AUD that automatically convert to your base currency at checkout with added fees and unpredictable FX results.
Here are the key setup choices that belong early in your build:
- Store currency and markets: Decide where most of your customers will come from and what currencies they will expect to pay in. This decision will guide how you configure Shopify Markets and multi-currency pricing
- Payment gateway setup: If Shopify Payments is available for your business in Singapore, activating it will let you manage checkout and payouts within Shopify. Third-party gateways can still be used, especially for region-specific methods or as fallback options
- Local payment methods: Singapore shoppers often prefer local options such as PayNow, mobile wallets or direct bank transfers. Adding these alongside global card options can improve conversion at checkout
Connect your Shopify store to a World Account
Connecting your Shopify store to a WorldFirst World Account lets you receive payouts in the same currencies your customers pay in, rather than converting everything to SGD by default. The setup is done directly in your Shopify admin and takes only a few steps.
Shopify lets you assign a payout bank account for each settlement currency. WorldFirst provides local receiving details for 20+ currencies, which you can use as your payout destination.
Once connected:
- USD sales pay out to your USD World Account details
- EUR sales pay out to your EUR World Account details
- SGD sales continue to pay out in SGD
Funds arrive in matching currency balances, giving you control over when and how conversion happens.
Steps to link Shopify with WorldFirst:
- Open a WorldFirst World Account and activate the currencies you plan to receive.
- Log in to your Shopify admin and go to Settings → Payments → Shopify Payments.
- Add a payout bank account for each currency using the World Account local receiving details.
- Assign each currency payout to its matching World Account details.
- Save your settings.
Once this is complete, Shopify sends payouts directly to your World Account in the original transaction currency.
Power your global growth with one account
Get local currency accounts, fast payments and competitive FX – all in one place.
Connect your Shopify store to a WorldFirst World Account and keep overseas sales in their original currencies until you decide to convert.
Aligning payments with your growth intentions
Before launching internationally from Singapore, it helps to answer some practical questions about how money will move through your store and into your business:
- Where will most of your customers pay from? Singapore domestic demand often differs from demand in the US, Europe or Asia and each region has preferred checkout methods
- In which currencies should you show prices and accept payments? Shopify lets you display local-currency pricing with international sales tools, helping reduce friction at checkout
- How and where will payouts land? Shopify Payments in Singapore requires a Singapore bank account in SGD and Shopify sends payouts in the currency tied to that account. If you want to receive in multiple currencies, you need separate bank accounts for each currency
- When should currency conversion happen? You can let Shopify convert at checkout based on live rates or use alternative tools to manage conversion timing and FX costs more deliberately
By thinking through these elements before launch, you build a payments foundation that matches how you plan to sell and get paid as your business grows internationally.
How Shopify payments work in Singapore
When you set up a Shopify store in Singapore, the way you accept and receive money affects your business on a fundamental level. Shopify Payments is the platform’s built‑in payment processing option.
For many Singapore merchants, it offers a clean starting point for taking card payments and accelerated wallet methods like Apple Pay or Google Pay. Shopify Payments lets you accept major credit and debit cards and offers accelerated checkout to improve conversion rates.
Shopify Payments availability and basics
Shopify Payments is available to merchants operating in Singapore, but you must meet specific criteria to use it. Your business must be eligible under Shopify’s terms and you need a Singapore bank account in SGD set up to receive payouts.
That means payouts from Shopify Payments will land in Singapore dollars unless you choose otherwise on eligible plans.
Because payouts go into a domestic currency bank account, the money you collect from international customers may get converted before it reaches you.
Selling internationally on Shopify Payments looks like this in practice:
- You can show prices and accept payments in multiple currencies when you turn on the international sales tools and Shopify Markets
- Your customer’s payment processes in the currency they choose at checkout
- Shopify then settles that payment into your chosen payout currency based on your store location and bank account setup. For most Singapore stores, the payout currency defaults to SGD
Common pain points for Singapore Shopify sellers
Despite Shopify’s capabilities, Singapore sellers often face several challenges:
- Foreign-exchange risk and costs: Receiving payments in USD, EUR, AUD or RMB while paying suppliers in SGD creates FX exposure. Every conversion, whether at Shopify’s rate or your bank’s, adds costs. Sellers often have to convert currencies immediately at payout, locking in unfavorable rates
- Payout delays and cash flow unpredictability: Shopify’s payout schedule, combined with banking delays, can delay funds clearing for 4-7 days, slowing cash flow planning
- Fragmented reconciliation: Selling on multiple platforms (Shopify store, marketplaces, social commerce) in various currencies means managing multiple ledgers. Sellers must manually reconcile payouts, receipts and invoices
- Operational inefficiencies: Managing separate bank accounts, payment links and one-off transfers can be cumbersome. Many SMEs find themselves batching small invoices or paying high wire fees
Platform limitations: Shopify only allows one primary currency account per store (unless you’re on Shopify Plus, which offers more flexibility but at a higher cost). If you need to accept USD, for example, you’ll need an additional non-SGD receiving account (in HK or elsewhere) and Shopify will apply a multi-currency payout fee
Strategies for growing your Shopify store in Singapore
Growing a Shopify store from Singapore means thinking locally and globally. Success requires practical choices that strengthen customer experience, expand reach and keep financial operations under control.
1. Build local relevance, think global first
Your store should speak to customers no matter where they come from. That starts with localized experience:
- Show product prices in the visitor’s currency and language
- Signal shipping costs and taxes early in the journey
- Match expectations for payment and delivery.
Consumers tend to convert better when they see familiar currency and clear costs up front. Shopify’s international sales tools let you display local pricing and translate storefront content for different markets, which can significantly increase conversions abroad.
Consider how widely your audience stretches. Data from Shopify suggests that about 30% of store visitors often come from outside the home market and letting them shop in familiar terms removes a barrier at a crucial moment.
2. Use Shopify Markets to tailor entry into key markets
Shopify Markets is a built‑in tool for managing cross‑border sales from a single store.
It lets you tailor pricing rules, currencies and domains by region and show taxes and duties at checkout so customers are not surprised at delivery. Offering prices and payment options that feel local to your buyers helps reduce abandonment and build trust.
Set up Markets to manage:
- Local domain or subdomain structures for better regional SEO
- Pricing and currency rules per country
- Regional checkout flows and payment methods suited to each audience
Combining these elements makes your store feel native in each market without duplicating your site infrastructure.
3. Optimise product discovery and conversion
Traffic alone does not drive sustainable growth. Once visitors arrive, your store must convert them into customers. This means eliminating friction at every step:
- Use clear, benefit‑focused product descriptions rather than generic lists
- Display high‑quality images and customer reviews
- Keep navigation intuitive and make checkout as simple as one or two clicks
- Show estimated shipping times based on location to manage expectations
It also helps to test and refine based on real visitor behavior. Small improvements to page speed and clarity can generate significant gains in conversion, because every extra word or delay adds cognitive load that can cost a sale.
4. Expand reach with targeted marketing and partnerships
Growth does not happen in isolation from the marketplaces and platforms where your customers spend time. Consider strategic use of:
- Social commerce channels that link directly to your Shopify catalog
- Influencer and content partnerships tailored by region
- Paid advertising focused on high‑intent audiences
- Email and retention campaigns that lift lifetime value
These tactics work hand in hand: marketing drives awareness, but a local feel and smooth checkout turn interest into revenue.
5. Match payments and fulfillment to your customer profiles
Consumers expect both convenience and trust at checkout. In addition to local-currency pricing, offering local payment methods, such as region‑preferred e‑wallets or bank options, can make a measurable difference in conversion rates.
Shopify Payments with multi‑currency support and regional payment methods lets customers complete transactions without bouncing to unfamiliar payment gateways.
On fulfillment, clear shipping options and delivery windows tailored to each country strengthen confidence. Pre‑paying duties and taxes at checkout, where supported, reduces unexpected costs upon delivery and improves completion rates.
6. Use data to drive decisions
Store data is one of your best guides to growth. Track:
- Where your highest‑value customers come from
- Which products perform best in which regions
- How conversion varies by currency and device
- Which payment methods have the lowest abandonment rates
Treat these metrics as signals, not just dashboards. Act on them by shifting marketing spend, rethinking product bundles or refining your supply chain approach.
How WorldFirst supports Shopify sellers in Singapore
Running a Shopify store from Singapore often means selling globally from day one. Customers pay in different currencies, suppliers sit in other countries and marketplaces follow their own payout rules.
Traditional bank accounts don’t support this reality. WorldFirst designed the World Account specifically for it.
WorldFirst provides a multi-currency business account for companies making international business payments. It is not a bank account. Used with Shopify, it gives sellers direct control over how they receive, hold, convert and use funds after a sale, not just at checkout.
With the World Account, Shopify Singapore sellers can:
- Receive and hold multiple currencies without forced conversion: Collect funds in 20+ major currencies, including USD, EUR, GBP, AUD, CNH and SGD, using local receiving details. Overseas sales stay in their original currency until you choose to convert, giving you control over timing and helping align conversions with supplier payments or ad spend
- Move money to match your operating needs: Convert currencies when it suits your cash flow and withdraw to your Singapore bank account when needed. Shopify payouts route directly to matching World Account currencies, so USD sales land in USD, EUR in EUR, while SGD remains available for local costs
- Pay overseas suppliers without banking delays: Pay suppliers, manufacturers and service providers in 100+ currencies to 210+ countries from one platform, avoiding slow transfers, high fees and payment delays that disrupt operations
- See your global cash position clearly: View balances, transactions and currency movements in one dashboard. Track Shopify payouts, marketplace income and supplier payments without managing multiple foreign bank accounts or fragmented statements
- Built for Singapore-based businesses: WorldFirst operates in Singapore and offers local onboarding, SGD support and free online account setup
For Shopify sellers, the result is a more efficient and controlled financial setup. Payments arrive in the right currency, conversions happen on your terms and supplier payments move without unnecessary delay.
WorldFirst acts as the financial layer that connects your Shopify store to the global markets you sell into, without the complexity of traditional banking workflows.
Ready to take control of your Shopify payments?
Open a World Account and connect it to your Shopify store to receive, hold and manage international sales in the currencies your customers pay in, on your terms.
Sources:
- https://www.imda.gov.sg/how-we-can-help/e-commerce
- https://www.shopify.com/sg/online
- https://www.shopify.com/sg/payments
- https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/payments/shopify-payments/supported-countries/singapore
- https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/international
- https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/markets
- https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/payments/multi-currency
- https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/payments/shopify-payments/getting-paid
- https://www.shopify.com/enterprise/global-ecommerce-statistics
- https://www.statista.com/statistics/261676/market-share-of-e-commerce-platforms-in-asia-pacific/
- https://www.mas.gov.sg/regulation/payments
- https://www.worldfirst.com/eu/help-center/receiving-payments/shopify/
Shawn Shen is the Country Manager for Singapore and the Philippines, with over 15 years of experience in commercial leadership across payments, SaaS and fintech.
Shawn Shen
Author
Country Manager, Singapore & Philippines WorldFirst Singapore
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