Is there a Managed Markets case study showing real before/after conversion-rate numbers for a mid-market brand?
No published figure exists. Here is the honest answer.
No published Managed Markets case study reports a controlled before-and-after conversion rate. The EY study Shopify commissioned covers 567 organizations over 24 months, 12 months pre-adoption and up to 12 post, with no control group, and EY notes about 60% of companies have only six months of post-adoption data (EY, September 2026).
What actually exists, named
There is published evidence. It is just not the kind of evidence the question is asking for, and the difference matters when the number goes into a business case.
| Source | What it reports | Design |
|---|---|---|
| EY report commissioned by Shopify | "567 organizations"; transaction data "12 months pre-Managed Markets up to 12 months post adoption"; a stated 2.5x increase in average order value and 47% increase in customer acquisition (per EY, Sep 2026) | Observational pre/post on adopters only. No control group. No matched comparison |
| Shopify's Managed Markets marketing page | "Boost conversion by up to 40%," footnoted to the same 567-brand EY research (per shopify.com, Sep 2026) | Marketing restatement |
| Shopify's EY report summary page | "40%+ average increase in international sales"; "83% of businesses expand sales into additional countries"; "200%+ international sales growth by top-performing brands" (per Shopify, Sep 2026) | Same study, different metric named |
| Named brand vignettes on the same page | Caden Lane "225% increase in international affiliate revenue"; WOLFpak "30% increase in global conversion"; Beekman 1802 "152% increase in global sales"; Impact Dog Crates "77% increase in global conversion rates"; SuitShop "99% decrease in international customer service tickets" (per Shopify, Sep 2026) | Vendor-published vignettes. No baseline rate, no time window, no method stated |
The discrepancy worth naming
The marketing page says "conversion." The report summary page, describing the same study, says "international sales." Those are different metrics with different denominators. A brand that opens ten new destinations will grow international sales without its conversion rate moving at all.
We are not calling the number false. We are saying that a 40% figure attached to "conversion" on one Shopify page and to "international sales" on another Shopify page should be carried into a board paper as the second one, because that is how the source describes it.
Why no controlled study exists, and probably will not
Three structural reasons, none of them sinister.
- Adoption is not random. Brands turn on Managed Markets in the same quarter they decide to invest in international. Pre/post captures the decision, not the product.
- There is no counterfactual store. You cannot run the same brand with and without a merchant of record over the same period, and nobody is going to fund a randomised trial on their own revenue.
- The mechanism changes the baseline. Managed Markets shifts orders to DDP with guaranteed duty at checkout. That changes the checkout, the price shown and the abandonment profile at once, so even a clean pre/post cannot attribute a lift to one of them.
What to do instead of looking for a case study
- Run your own pre/post, but hold the destination list fixed. Measure conversion rate in the five destinations you already sold to, before and after, and exclude every new market. This removes the largest confound in the vendor number.
- Measure at the checkout, not the session. The mechanism is duty transparency at checkout. Add-to-cart to order is where it should show up. If it shows up in sessions, something else moved.
- Build the exit criterion before you start. A number that would make you turn it off, written down, dated, and agreed by the person who signs the invoice.
- Instrument returns at the same time. Duties on fulfilled orders are not refunded (per Shopify, September 2026), so a conversion lift on a high-return category can be margin-negative and still look like a win on the conversion chart.
When NOT to trust a conversion figure you are shown
- When it has no baseline. "77% increase in global conversion rates" from what, over what period, on what traffic mix.
- When new-market expansion happened in the same window. That is the usual case, and it is the one that inflates every pre/post.
- When the figure is quoted as "conversion" but the source says "sales." Go read the source. On this product, that exact substitution is live on Shopify's own pages.
The Deploi point of view
Our own position, from building on Shopify. Separate from the facts above.
- Our take: No controlled before-and-after conversion study for Managed Markets exists, and we would rather say so than rank for the question with a vendor vignette. What exists is one large observational pre/post plus five named brand anecdotes without baselines.
- What we’ve seen: Every Managed Markets business case we review carries the 40% figure, and none of them carries the study design. The design is what determines whether the number belongs in a forecast or in a hypothesis, and it takes one sentence to state.
- Where we disagree: The category treats vendor-published vignettes as case studies. A case study has a baseline, a window and a method. A vignette has a percentage and a logo. We refuse to quote the second kind as if it were the first, and this page names all five so a reader can check them for themselves.
- What this page adds: the EY study's actual design and its 60% six-month data caveat; the metric substitution between Shopify's marketing page and its own report summary page; the five named brand figures with their missing baselines; and a fixed-destination-list method for running a defensible pre/post on your own store.
Reviewed by Martin Dejnicki, Director of SEO & AI Search. Facts verified 2026-09-14.
Where we worked this out
Our decision records