Magento 2: order not exported due to country or state restrictions

About this guide

This is a guide on how you can enable or disable country, state, and shipping method countries for each of your Magento 2 storeviews. 

Table of contents

Introduction
Error notification
Country options
State options
Shipping method countries

Introduction

When forwarding orders through ChannelEngine to Magento 2, orders follow the same logic as if they were directly placed in your Magento 2 store. As a result, if your Magento 2 settings are configured to only allow purchases from a specific country, this will also mean that ChannelEngine orders from outside of that permitted country will be rejected by Magento.

For example, if your Magento storeview https://my-fashion-store.nl only accepts orders placed by customers in the Netherlands, a ChannelEngine order from a German customer will be rejected in Magento and appear with an error in ChannelEngine. 

Error notification

As with all order exports to Magento 2, if an error occurs it will automatically log a notification in ChannelEngine stating the cause. If you receive an error message such as the example below, this is in all likeliness a result of country or state restrictions for this particular storeview. 

Click View order at the bottom of the notification to open the relevant order. Make a note of the order address, especially the country code, as you can use this to check against the country or state restrictions on your storeview settings. 

Country options for a storeview

Follow the steps below to enable/disable countries per Magento 2 storeview. For more information, you can view the Magento documentation on their Help Center: Store details - country options. 

1. On the Admin sidebar in Magento 2, go to Stores, Settings, Configuration.
2. In the left panel under General, choose General.
3. Expand the Country Options section.
4. In the Allow Countries list, select each country from which you accept orders for this specific storeview. If you have only one store view, you can leave Use system value enabled, but in that case, be sure that the system values also allow the countries you want to accept orders from.
5. In the Zip/Postal Code is Optional for list, select each country where your fulfillment solution requires a ZIP or postal code to be included as part of the street address.
   NB: Zip / Postal codes are often included on orders coming from ChannelEngine; the Region / State, however, is not included. 
6. When you have selected all the countries you wish to enable sales from, click on Save Config at the bottom of the page.

Note: This is a common recurring issue especially if you are selling on a French marketplace like Amazon.fr (but may also apply to other marketplaces and other countries). By default, many additional countries and regions are enabled for (Amazon) France which you will not have enabled by default in a French storeview. Some examples are small neighboring states such as Monaco and Andorra, the island of Corsica, and the French overseas territories such as Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mayotte, and Saint-Martin.

State options for a storeview

Follow the steps below to enable/disable states per Magento 2 storeview. For more information, you can view the Magento documentation on their Help Center: Store details - state options. 

1. On the Admin sidebar, go to Stores, Settings, Configuration.
2. Under General in the left panel, choose General.
3. Expand the State Options section and complete the following steps:
   • In the State is required for list, select each country where Region/State is a required entry.
   • Set the Allow to Choose State if It is Optional for Country field to one of the following:

     Yes	In countries where the state field is not required, includes the State field as an optional entry.
     No	In countries where the state field is not required, omits the State field.

4. When complete, click Save Config.

Note: If you are only selling in Europe and/or are using a storeview specifically for one or more European countries, we strongly recommend disabling the state requirement. Many marketplaces do NOT supply any state/region/province information, so the order will be lacking this address line. This can result in orders not being exported to Magento from ChannelEngine. 

Shipping method countries

For more information, you can view the Magento documentation on their Help Center here.

1. On the Admin sidebar, go to Stores, Settings, Configuration, Sales, Shipping Methods.
2. Depending on the type of shipping method you use (most sellers will use Flat Rate), choose the correct option from the menu.
3. Expand the Shipping Method section.
4. In the Ship to Applicable Countries section, make sure that All Allowed Countries is selected if you have already verified that these are correct. Otherwise, you can also uncheck Use system value and select the countries you wish to allow orders from in the Ship to Specific Countries section.
5. When complete, click Save Config.