Markets and Locations

Control where a customer experience template applies and which stock it watches. Market scope decides who sees it, inventory location scope decides which stock it reacts to. Both live under Markets & locations inside a customer experience template.

The two settings

Inside a customer experience template, the Markets & Locations page has two settings that work independently of each other:

• Market scope (Select market scope) — which shoppers the customer experience template applies to, by country or market.
• Inventory location scope (Select inventory scope) — which of your Shopify locations' stock Timesact looks at when deciding whether a product is live.

Because both are set on each customer experience template, you can attach more than one customer experience template to the same product and have each one apply to a different market and watch a different location.

Good to know: Specific countries, Shopify markets, and Specific locations need the PRO plan. Global market scope and All locations work on every plan.

Where to find it

Open a customer experience template from the Experiences tab, then in the left menu under Admin, click Markets & locations.

Market scope

Under Select market scope, choose one:

• Global (all markets) — applies to everyone, in every country. This is the default.
• Specific countries — applies only to the countries you choose.
• Shopify markets — applies only to the Shopify markets you have already set up in your Shopify admin.

Inventory location scope

Under Select inventory scope, choose one:

• All locations — adds up stock from every location. This is the default.
• Specific locations — uses stock only from the locations you choose. Handy when you have several locations and want availability decided by specific ones.

How shoppers are matched to the right one

When a shopper visits your store, Timesact works out which country or market they are in and shows them the customer experience template whose market scope matches them:

• Global matches everyone.
• Specific countries matches only shoppers from the countries you listed.
• Shopify markets matches only shoppers in the markets you selected.

This is what lets the same product behave differently for different shoppers: someone in one market sees the customer experience template scoped to their market, while someone elsewhere sees a different one.

Tip: if a product has more than one customer experience template, give them markets that do not overlap, so each shopper matches exactly one. If you have scoped a template to one market and the functionality is still showing everywhere, see If a market scope doesn't seem to apply at the end of this article.

How the location decides Active vs On standby

Each variant of a product shows a status: Active (live now) or On standby (set up, but waiting for the right stock). The location scope decides which stock number Timesact reads, and your When Pre-order shows setting decides what to do with it. More on statuses and stock behaviour in When Pre-order shows.

For example, with When Pre-order shows set to "Only when out of stock":

• The chosen location's stock is 0 → the variant is Active (the Pre-order button shows).
• The chosen location's stock is above 0 → the variant is On standby (Add to Cart shows).

If you scope to a single location, only that location's stock counts, even if your other locations are full.

Example 1a — a pre-order driven by one location

This shows how scoping to one location makes the pre-order react only to that location.

In Shopify:

1. Go to Settings → Locations and create a few, for example Warehouse A, Warehouse B, Warehouse C.
2. On a test product, set one location to 0 and leave the others with stock. For this example: Warehouse A = 0, Warehouse B and C above 0.

In Timesact:

1. Create a customer experience template and add the Pre-order functionality.
2. In Functionality settings → When Pre-order shows, choose "Only when out of stock."
3. In Markets & locations → Select inventory scope, choose Specific locations and pick only Warehouse A.
4. Assign the product to this customer experience template (see Adding Products).

Result: because Timesact now looks only at Warehouse A, and it is at 0, the variant is Active and shoppers see the Pre-order button, even though B and C still have stock. Add stock back to Warehouse A and it flips to On standby, because the location you scoped is no longer out of stock.

Example 1b — a location that holds stock but doesn't sell online

Some locations hold stock a shopper can't buy on your website: a shop counter, a concession, a pop-up or a showroom that sells through Shopify POS. In Shopify those locations usually have Fulfil online orders turned off, so their units are never offered to online shoppers.

Timesact adds up every location's stock by default, so those units count when it works out whether a variant is Active or On standby. On a variant whose online locations have run down to 0 while the shop still holds units, that gives you a product a shopper can't buy, because Shopify has nothing to sell online, and can't pre-order either, because Timesact still sees stock and the variant sits in On standby. Scoping the customer experience template to your online locations settles it, and the variant switches to the pre-order the moment your online stock reaches 0.

Here's the setup, step by step.

1. In your Shopify admin, go to Settings → Locations and open each location in turn. Note which ones have Fulfil online orders turned on and which don't, the ones with it off are the ones to leave out.
2. Still in Shopify admin, go to Products, open the product and select the variant. Its Inventory section shows the quantity held at each location, so you can see where the units actually are.
3. In the Timesact app, open the Experiences tab and open the customer experience template attached to that product.
4. In the left menu under Admin, click Markets & locations.
5. Under Select inventory scope, choose Specific locations and tick only the locations that fulfil online orders, leaving your shop or POS-only locations unticked. Save.
6. Back in the Timesact app, open Products and check the variant's status. With only your online locations counted, a variant that has run down online now reads Active and the Pre-order button shows. Open the product page in an incognito window to see it the way a shopper does.

Specific locations is a PRO-plan option; All locations, the default, works on every plan.

Your shop stock keeps selling in store exactly as before. Inventory scope only changes which numbers Timesact reads, it doesn't move or reserve any stock.

Example 2 — one product, different for US and Europe

This shows the same product behaving differently per market, each reading its own location.

1. In Shopify, make sure you have a US location (say USA Warehouse) and a Europe location (say EU Warehouse), each with its own stock.
2. Create the first customer experience template and name it Pre-order US:

• Market scope → Shopify markets (United States), or the US as a specific country.
• Inventory scope → Specific locations → USA Warehouse only.

3. Create the second customer experience template and name it Pre-order EU:

• Market scope → your Europe Shopify market, or the European countries.
• Inventory scope → Specific locations → EU Warehouse only.

4. Assign both customer experience templates to the same product.

Result: a shopper in the US is matched to Pre-order US, so their availability comes from USA Warehouse stock. A shopper in Europe is matched to Pre-order EU, from EU Warehouse stock. The same product can show Pre-order in one market and Add to Cart in the other at the same moment, because each customer experience template reads a different location.

Example 3 — one product, different payment terms per market

Market scope doesn't only change whether a shopper sees the pre-order. Everything you configure inside a customer experience template travels with it, the billing policy, the deposit amount, the shipping date, the discount, and the storefront wording. So two templates on the same product can give each market its own pre-order terms, with no need to duplicate the product. Here, shoppers in the United Kingdom reserve with nothing to pay now, and everyone else pays in full.

1. Create the first customer experience template and name it Pre-order UK:

• Add the Pre-order functionality.
• Functionality settings → Billing → Split payment, upfront amount 0. UK shoppers reserve the item and are charged nothing at checkout; Shopify stores the payment method and collects the balance later (see Billing and Split payments).
• Market scope → your United Kingdom Shopify market, or United Kingdom as a specific country.

2. Create the second customer experience template and name it Pre-order rest of world:

• Add the Pre-order functionality.
• Functionality settings → Billing → Full amount.
• Market scope → the markets or countries you sell to, except the United Kingdom.

3. Assign both customer experience templates to the same product.

Result: a shopper in the United Kingdom is matched to Pre-order UK and reserves with no charge now; a shopper anywhere else is matched to Pre-order rest of world and pays in full. It's one product, one product page, and one set of Shopify inventory. Give the two market scopes no overlap, so every shopper matches exactly one.

Good to know

• Inventory scope only changes which stock Timesact reads. It does not change your actual Shopify inventory.
• If you want country-level control but have not set up Shopify Markets, use Specific countries instead.

If a market scope doesn't seem to apply

Market scope is set on the customer experience template, not on the product, and a product can have more than one template attached to it. If any of them is still on Global (all markets), the default, that one matches every shopper, so the functionality keeps showing worldwide even though another template is scoped to a single market.

Here's how to check.

1. In the Timesact app, open Products and find the product. It lists every customer experience template attached to it.
2. Open each one in turn: Experiences → the template → Admin → Markets & locations, and read what Select market scope is set to.
3. For any template you didn't mean to apply worldwide, either set its market scope to the countries or Shopify markets you want, or detach it from the product in the Products list so only the template you want that market to see stays attached.
4. Give the templates that remain market scopes that don't overlap, so every shopper matches exactly one.
5. Check it as a shopper would: open the product page in an incognito window and use your store's country or market selector to view it from a market that should show the pre-order, and from one that shouldn't.

Specific countries and Shopify markets are PRO-plan options; on other plans market scope stays Global.

If every attached template is scoped the way you want and the functionality still shows outside those markets, send us the product link and the market you're testing from and we'll take a look.

Updated on: 08/11/2026