I've set up translations on a lot of Shopify stores. For years, Shopify Translate and Adapt was the go-to — it's free, it's built in, and for a single new language it gets the job done.

But these days, whenever I'm adding a new market or a new language, I use a different workflow. It's faster, the CSV is actually clean enough to work with, and it handles theme section content that Translate and Adapt simply can't see. If you're looking for a Translate and Adapt alternative that keeps translations native in Shopify — no proxy apps, no per-word pricing — here's exactly how it works.

The workflow

1. Create the new market

First, set up the market in Shopify Admin → Settings → Markets — add Germany as a region and assign your .de domain. Then hand off to Claude:

"List my markets and set nordpine.de as German by default."

Claude finds your domain, sets German as the default locale, and geo-routing is live. Visitors from Germany land on nordpine.de in German automatically.

2. Export all translations to a clean CSV

"Export all my page and theme translations to a CSV — I want to see what's missing in German."

Claude exports every text field across your store — headings, body text, button labels, form fields, dropdown options — and builds a CSV with columns for your source language, the German translation, and a status column. Image URLs and internal Shopify links are automatically filtered out, so the file contains only what actually needs translating.

The status column makes it instant to see where you stand:

field source de_value status
image_banner.heading Premium outdoor furniture MISSING
button_label Shop now MISSING
contact_form.heading Get in touch Kontakt aufnehmen OK

3. Ask Claude to fill in all missing translations

Open the CSV in Google Sheets, have a quick look, then come back to Claude:

"Fill in all MISSING German translations. We sell premium outdoor furniture — keep the tone warm but professional."

Claude goes through every MISSING row and fills in the German column with brand-aware translations — not generic Google Translate output. You get a complete updated CSV back.

4. Check the filled CSV

Scan through the translations. Tweak anything that doesn't sound right for your brand. This is the step where you stay in control — Claude does the bulk work, you make the final call.

5. Upload to Shopify

"Upload these German translations to Shopify."

Claude sends everything to Shopify in batches via the Translations API. Translations are stored natively in Shopify — no proxy app, no middleman running on every page load. If any row fails, you get the reason and can fix it on the spot.

Your German store is live. One conversation from start to finish.

The thing Shopify Translate and Adapt can't solve

The biggest hidden problem with Translate and Adapt is theme section content. Headings, text blocks, and button labels added through the theme customizer often don't appear in the app at all. So they never get translated, and your source language leaks through on the international domain — with no obvious explanation why.

ShopMCP reads theme section content directly and includes it in the export. You can also check a specific page:

"Show me the translation review for my homepage — I think some sections are still in English."

Claude fetches every text field in the page template, shows source vs translation side by side, and you can fix anything in the same conversation.

Why not just keep using Translate and Adapt?

If you have one new language and a small store — it's still fine. But the moment you need more than 2 auto-translated languages, or your theme is content-heavy, or you want a clean CSV you can actually work with, it becomes a bottleneck. This workflow is just faster and gives you more control over the result.