Shopify Products Not Showing? Fix Market Catalog & Publishing Settings

One of the most confusing issues beginners run into on Shopify is when a product is active in the admin, but it simply doesn’t appear on the live store. Even more confusing, the product might show in one region (like Canada) but disappear in another (like the United States). In this guide, we’ll break down exactly why that happens and how to fix it using Shopify’s new market catalog system.

Shopify has made several major updates over the last year, and one of the most impactful changes involves markets and the way products are assigned to each region. If you’re selling to multiple countries, or even if you’ve just accidentally created a separate market without realizing it, your products may be missing from certain storefront views.

Because our community is full of new Shopify entrepreneurs, I want to break this down clearly and help you avoid hours of confusion. And if you’re still in the early stages of building your store, the free lessons inside the 30-Day Beginner’s Shopify Program (https://www.professorcommerce.com/pages/30-Day-Beginner's-Shopify-Program) walk through every setup step with guided video tutorials.

Why Products Disappear in Different Regions

Every Shopify store has a default market and a default catalog. All new products are assigned to that default catalog automatically. However, the moment you create an additional market—such as United States, Canada, Europe, or any custom international region—Shopify allows each market to have its own catalog. This means a product can be published in one region but excluded from another without you realizing it.

For example, if you’ve created a Canadian market and a US market, the beanie you added last week might show up only in Canada. Your t-shirt and jeans might appear in the US catalog, but the beanie won’t unless you manually add it to that region’s catalog.

This isn’t a glitch—it’s the new system. Shopify now gives merchants fine-grained control over which products appear in each market. That’s great for advanced sellers, but it can be confusing for beginners who expect all products to appear everywhere by default.

Check #1: Product Status and Sales Channels

Before touching markets, start with the basics. Open any product in your Shopify admin and confirm the following:

• The product status is set to Active
• It’s published to the Online Store
• It’s assigned to the correct sales channels

These are the foundation. If a product is still in draft mode or isn’t published to the Online Store, it will never appear on your website. This catches beginners all the time.

If you’re following along with the video, you’ll notice that once the product is set to Active and published to the Online Store, it becomes visible—at least in the default market. But if it’s still missing in one region, move on to market catalogs.

Check #2: Market Catalog Assignments

This is where the real issue usually lives. Go to Settings → Markets in your Shopify admin. Here you’ll see each region you’re selling to. Click into a specific market—such as the United States—and look for the Catalog section.

Inside the catalog, Shopify lists every product that is included in that market. If your missing product isn’t listed here, that’s the reason it’s not appearing in that region.

To fix it, simply toggle the product on for the market. You can also enable the setting that automatically includes all new products for that specific market if you want everything to appear by default.

For some stores, though, you may not want every product in every region. For example, if your US supplier doesn’t ship a particular clothing item internationally, you may intentionally leave it out of the Canadian market. That’s when market-specific catalogs become powerful.

But for most beginners, they didn’t create this setup intentionally—they just clicked through the market creation wizard without realizing what they changed. So reviewing the catalog is essential.

Check #3: Publishing Settings for Multi-Market Stores

Now return to your product page in the admin. Under “Publishing,” you’ll now see a section where each market is listed individually. This wasn’t always visible in older versions of Shopify’s UI, so many merchants are surprised to see it.

If you created even one new market, each product now has its own region-specific publishing toggle. A product may be active globally, but internationally it might be missing because the market toggle is off.

To fix this:

1. Open the product
2. Scroll to “Publishing”
3. Toggle the market on
4. Save

Once saved, reload your storefront in that region and the product will appear.

If you view your store using the market selector (often in the footer or header), you’ll instantly see whether your products appear correctly in each region. Shopify makes this easy with currency switching—USD, CAD, EUR, etc.

Bulk Editing Multiple Products at Once

If you’ve added several products and just realized that none of them are published in a specific market, you don’t need to open each one manually. Shopify’s Bulk Editor makes this extremely efficient.

Simply:

1. Go to Products
2. Select all the items you want to modify
3. Click Bulk Edit
4. Add the publishing column for the specific market if it’s not visible
5. Click and drag to toggle markets on or off across all products

Bulk editing saves a massive amount of time, especially for stores with large catalogs. Many merchants don’t realize this tool exists, but it’s one of Shopify’s most powerful features.

Other Causes of Missing Products

While market catalogs and publishing settings are usually the issue, here are a few additional settings to review:

• Inventory & Locations: Products won’t appear if inventory is tracked and stock is zero in the assigned location.
• Shipping Profiles: If shipping isn’t configured for that product, some regions may hide it.
• Draft vs Active: Always confirm activation status.

These issues are less common, but they’re worth checking if you’ve ruled everything else out.

Getting Your Store Set Up Correctly

If you’re still setting up your store and want a clear, beginner-friendly roadmap, the 30-Day Beginner’s Shopify Program (https://www.professorcommerce.com/pages/30-Day-Beginner's-Shopify-Program) walks through every step—from markets to taxes to product setup. You can also find additional Shopify tutorials on our YouTube Channel.

And if you’d like your Shopify brand featured in our videos for SEO exposure, visit our Patreon at https://patreon.com/ProfessorCommerce. Supporting the channel helps us create deeper, more advanced Shopify lessons for the entire community.

Once you understand how Shopify markets and catalogs work, managing international storefronts becomes much easier. Whether you’re a complete beginner or expanding into new regions, these settings will help you avoid missing products and keep your store running smoothly.