FAQs | Orbe – Help center

Why should I choose Orbe over Shopify’s automatic redirection for internationalization?

Choosing the right geolocation solution is crucial for international growth. Here’s why Orbe is a better choice than Shopify’s automatic redirection:

SEO Benefits: Shopify’s automatic redirection can harm your SEO by blocking web crawlers from indexing localized versions of your store. Orbe ensures all versions of your store are indexed correctly, improving your search visibility in different regions.
Data Protection: Automatic redirects often don’t meet data protection laws like GDPR, CCPA, and LGPD. Orbe asks customers for their location and language preferences through a welcome popup and remembers these choices, ensuring compliance and building customer trust.
Consistent Experience: Shopify’s redirection works only on the first visit, which can cause inconsistent experiences for returning customers. Orbe ensures customers are always directed to the right version of your store, providing a seamless experience.
Enhanced Customer Experience: Orbe uses a welcome popup to personalize the shopping experience based on location and language preferences from the start, leading to higher customer satisfaction and conversion rates.

In summary, while Shopify’s automatic redirection might work for some stores, Orbe offers better SEO, compliance, and a consistent, personalized experience for businesses aiming to expand globally.

What are the main differences between Geolocation by Shopify and Orbe?

Orbe introduces a streamlined, customizable popup that seamlessly aligns with your brand guidelines, enhancing the overall user experience. Distinct from the Shopify Geolocation app, here are the key disparities:

Continuous Functionality: Orbe ensures ongoing accuracy by confirming the customer's correct shopping experience. This prevents accidental visits to alternate experiences featuring distinct prices, products, content, currencies, or languages. Unlike the Shopify Geolocation App, which operates only during the initial visit and lacks the capability for automatic redirections, leading to certain issues.
Consent Management: Orbe records user consent, preventing the popup from reappearing during subsequent visits and guaranteeing consistent placement within the appropriate experience.
Customization Power: Our popups are fully customizable, allowing you to tailor the appearance and content of the geolocation recommendation popup directly from the Shopify Theme Editor. Titles and text can be adjusted to cater to diverse languages.
Multi-Store Geolocation: Orbe effortlessly links with multiple Shopify stores, directing customers to their ideal shopping experience through geolocation.
Country Selector: Orbe empowers users to adjust their preferences by offering a market selector.
Integration with Klaviyo: Orbe integrates with Klaviyo, enabling the transmission of user preferences to personalize email campaigns based on preferred language and country.
Built for Shopify: Orbe proudly bears the 'Built for Shopify' emblem, a distinction recognizing top-tier apps within the Shopify App Store for performance, speed, and design.
Robust Support: Our customer support is accessible from 9 am to 6 pm (CET Time), Monday to Friday. Our app boasts a sterling 5-star rating, a testament to the appreciation shared by numerous merchants.

In essence, Orbe Geolocation not only offers a sophisticated solution but also consistently surpasses the capabilities of the Shopify Geolocation app, providing a comprehensive and tailored geolocation experience for your customers.

How can I customise the style of the welcome Orbe popup?

Orbe integrates natively with any Shopify theme. Once you install Orbe in your store, you can customise the look and feel of your popup using our app-embed in the Shopify Theme Editor.

Is it possible to show "Markets" or group countries in the selector instead of showing each individual country in the country selector?

Due to technical constraints and limitations within Shopify International (also known as Shopify Markets), Orbe is unable to display "Markets" or group countries together in the country selector. While Shopify Markets allows merchants to group experiences by market, it is fundamentally structured at the country level. Markets have been designed as a Shopify feature intended solely to make management more efficient for the merchant, not for the customer’s final storefront experience.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to show "Markets" or group countries in the selector due to how Shopify storefronts are structured at a country-specific level. While it might seem practical to group countries under broader categories like "Europe" or "Rest of the World," Shopify requires each redirection to be tied to an individual country.

Imagine a scenario where a brand has four available markets: the United States, the United Kingdom, a market labeled "Europe" encompassing Spain, France, Italy, and Germany, and a "Rest of the World" market covering all other countries. Ideally, the brand might want the geolocation popup to display only these four options: the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Rest of the World. However, since Shopify Markets is structured at the country level, every redirection by Orbe must be specific to an individual country.

For example, assuming the store URL is https://mystore.com, to redirect users within the "Europe" market, Orbe would need to add a specific ?country=CountryCode parameter for each country. This would result in unique redirection links for each country in Europe:

Spain: https://mystore.com/?country=ES
France: https://mystore.com/?country=FR
Italy: https://mystore.com/?country=IT
Germany: https://mystore.com/?country=DE

While Shopify Markets allows merchants to group countries for organizational simplicity, it does not support redirection to an entire market. Instead, redirection remains country-specific, which affects factors like tax rates, shipping options, or even content tailored to each country.

Consider a scenario where a merchant wishes to redirect users to a "Rest of the World" market that spans Europe, Asia, and Oceania. Shopify would require a specific country to be indicated in the URL for this redirection. For instance, if "Australia" were chosen as the representative country for "Rest of the World," a user accessing the store from Japan would be directed to an experience tailored for Australia. This could lead to discrepancies in prices (due to different tax rates), shipping options, and even country-specific content configured in Shopify using the {{ localization.country }} object in Liquid. Thus, each country can have unique configurations and localized experiences that cannot be overridden by a market grouping.

Attempting to redirect at a market level or group countries in the selector is not technically compatible with Shopify Markets. Any app trying to redirect to a market as a whole, rather than by individual country, would be incompatible with Shopify’s infrastructure, potentially leading to issues with the customer experience.

Orbe adheres to this country-based structure to ensure full compatibility with Shopify’s ecosystem, as Shopify is built for storefronts focused on the country level.

Is it possible to implement automatic redirections instead of showing a popup?

At Orbe, we implement automatic redirections during second and subsequent visits once user consent has been obtained. We refrain from using automatic redirections during the initial visit due to their potential negative impacts on:

SEO Considerations: Given that prominent web crawlers, including Google, primarily operate from the US, it's crucial to weigh the implications of automatic redirection without user permission. Such redirections can potentially hinder the complete visibility of your localized experiences. This may result in the incomplete exploration and understanding of your region-specific content and offerings by Google and other search engines.
Global Data Protection Laws: In regions with stringent data protection regulations like the European Union (under GDPR, the General Data Protection Regulation) and California (under CCPA, the California Consumer Privacy Act), automatic redirections without explicit user consent are often not compliant. It's paramount to uphold users' privacy rights and secure their consent before leveraging personal information for automatic redirections.

Does Orbe appear twice to the user?

No, it doesn’t. When an international user visits your store, ORBE will recommend moving them to the localised experience. In the subsequent visits, as ORBE saved the consent, it will automatically redirect them to that experience.

Can I use Orbe with multiple expansion stores?

Yes, you can, and it is our most popular use case. If you pay for the Plus Plan in one of your stores, you can connect a maximum of four different Shopify stores and redirect the traffic to the right shopping experience. If you have over four Shopify stores, please contact our team at support@orbe.app to request a custom plan.

Does Orbe allow redirecting with the full path of the URL?

Yes, it does. It’s an advanced setting you can enable. If a merchant connects two different Shopify stores and both have the same URL structure, can enable this feature so if, for example, a British user goes to example.fr/collections/all, it will be redirected to example.co.uk/collections/all.

Does Orbe allow efficient UTM tracking when there is a redirection?

Yes, it does. For example, if a French user access to the United States experience with a UTM parameter from a Facebook ad: https://store.com/?utm_content=textlink&utm_source=facebook, Orbe will redirect the user to the French experience maintaining the full path in the URL: https://store.fr/?utm_content=textlink&utm_source=facebook.

In this way, Orbe guarantees that the store owner does not lose the traffic attribution for all their media campaigns.

Is Orbe compatible with other apps?

Yes, it is. Orbe works seamlessly with Shopify Markets. So, any app that works perfectly with Shopify Markets is integrated with Orbe.

Does Orbe add a footer selector?

Yes, in the footer of your website, you can choose between the classic or the selector with a popup where you will show the flags of all the countries where you sell.

Does Orbe have a Free plan or Trial plan?

You can use our geolocation service for free, up to 500 successfully redirected users per month. If you'd like more time to evaluate our service before making a decision, we offer free trials:

For Monthly plans, you'll enjoy a 7-day free trial. If you decide to cancel your plan within these seven days, you won't incur any charges.
With Yearly plans, we provide a 15-day free trial. Should you choose to cancel your plan during the first 15 days, there will be no charges applied.

What happens if I want to cancel my subscription?

You can cancel the paid plan at any time. You will only be charged for the last month you used Orbe.

Why is the Orbe cookie an essential cookie according to data protection laws?

The Orbe cookie is classified as an essential cookie based on data protection laws as it's designed to store the user's country and language preferences. These preferences are essential for providing a seamless and customized experience for visitors to merchant stores using our app.

Let's delve into the reasons why:

Personalized User Experience: When our app is installed on merchant stores, we embed our technology to enable the selection of country and language preferences through a pop-up window. The Orbe cookie is crucial for remembering these preferences, ensuring visitors are seamlessly redirected to content tailored to their chosen country and language. By doing so, we enhance their overall experience.
GDPR Compliance: According to data protection laws, essential cookies are exempted from the requirement of obtaining explicit user consent. These cookies are deemed necessary for the proper functioning of the website or application and do not compromise user privacy. In this context, the Orbe cookie for saving country and language preferences falls under the category of essential cookies.
Legitimate Interest and User Expectations: The concept of legitimate interest, as defined in Article 6(1)(f) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), allows the processing of personal data when the interests of the data controller align with the reasonable expectations of the data subjects. The Orbe cookie's purpose aligns with this concept, as it fulfills the user's expectation of a personalized experience based on their chosen country and language preferences. For more information on legitimate interests, please refer to the GDPR recital 47.
Merchant Benefits: For our merchant, the Orbe cookie plays a vital role in enhancing their customers' experience by providing localized content. This, in turn, can positively impact conversion rates and customer satisfaction. It ensures that visitors are seamlessly directed to the relevant content without unnecessary disruptions, creating a more efficient and user-friendly shopping environment.

It is crucial to note that we are committed to transparent data protection practices. The Orbe cookie is solely dedicated to storing country and language preferences and does not collect additional personal information without explicit consent.

Due to these reasons, if you use any technology for cookie management in your Shopify store or an app that blocks all cookies by default, you should add the following Orbe cookies as essential cookies to ensure they are not blocked. These cookies are critical for guaranteeing a correct international user experience and do not track any user data:

mdApp_countryCodeDomain
mdApp_showRecommendationLang

Please keep in mind that while this information reflects our understanding of data protection laws, it's advisable to seek legal advice for accurate interpretation and compliance with specific regulations and local laws.

Does Orbe comply with WCAG 2.2 accessibility standards at Levels A and AA, and is the interface responsive?

Yes, Orbe complies with the WCAG 2.2 accessibility standards at Levels A and AA. Our solution is designed to be accessible and user-friendly, ensuring that it meets the necessary criteria for a wide range of users, including those with disabilities. Here are some key points about Orbe's compliance and responsiveness:

Accessibility Compliance:
- Orbe meets WCAG 2.2 Levels A and AA standards.
- Various tests have been conducted to certify that Orbe's interface is accessible in different interaction formats.
- This includes keyboard navigation, screen reader compatibility, and other assistive technologies.
Responsiveness:
- Orbe is fully responsive and adapts seamlessly to both smaller mobile screens and larger desktop-sized screens.
- The interface ensures a consistent user experience across different devices and screen sizes.
Customization and Color Contrast:
- While Orbe’s default settings comply with WCAG standards, the customization options for the popup (e.g., colors, fonts) are flexible and can be modified extensively by the merchant.
- Merchants should ensure that their chosen customizations, particularly color contrasts, meet the WCAG guidelines to maintain compliance.

By adhering to these standards, Orbe aims to provide an inclusive and accessible experience for all users.

What is the behaviour of Shopify Markets when a user transitions from the storefront cart to the checkout?

As explained by the Shopify Markets team:

If the user does not use Orbe or any selector in their theme to choose a country in the storefront, Shopify will automatically geolocate the country during checkout. However, suppose the user intentionally selects a different country than the default in any selector on the storefront. In that case, Shopify respects that selection and sets it as the default country in the checkout.

For example, suppose a customer enters the storefront without selecting their market in Orbe and is located in a different country than the one they are visiting. In that case, the checkout will automatically change to their IP country and the user's preferred language.

Consider a specific example: Suppose a user does not use the Orbe popup or any country selector in their theme and is visiting your store's British experience in English. This user wants to ship their order to the UK. However, the user is located in France, and their preferred browser language is French (both available in another experience of your store). Once the user proceeds to the checkout, it will automatically switch to their location and language, despite being in a different store experience.

We hope this information clarifies any questions about the behaviour of Shopify Markets during the transition from the storefront cart to the checkout screen. If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to contact us.