Shoppers don't always ask about a country. They ask about the place they actually live: "do you ship to Cebu", "do you deliver to Alaska", "does this reach the Northern Mariana Islands". This is exactly the question Arbyn is built to answer with confidence, because it's checking your real shipping setup at the same level of detail the shopper is asking about.
What it does
When a shopper names a specific region, whether that's a US state, a Canadian province, a Philippine region, or any other subdivision Shopify recognizes, Arbyn checks it directly against the exact list of regions you've enabled for that country in your shipping zones, and answers definitively: yes, that region is covered, or no, it currently isn't. It never guesses, and it never rounds a specific region up to "well, we ship to that country generally."
Where to find it
This is how Arbyn already answers, in chat and by email, in whichever language the shopper is writing in. There's nothing to configure. If you want to check the exact list Arbyn is reading before a shopper asks, open Knowledge, then Catalog, then Shipping, pick your profile, and choose View zones & rates.
How it works
A named region is matched directly against your real region list, not inferred. If your Philippines coverage lists 74 named regions and a shopper asks about Cebu, Arbyn checks the list, sees Cebu on it, and answers yes. If they ask about Tawi-Tawi, and that region isn't on the list, Arbyn answers no, just as directly. Both answers come from the same check, run the same way, regardless of whether the honest answer is a yes or a no.
Worked example, US. A shopper writes "does this ship to Alaska?" Arbyn checks your US zone's region list. If Alaska is in it, whether standing alongside the other 49 states or singled out with a different rate, the answer is yes, delivered with whatever cost or condition applies to that zone. If your US zone excludes Alaska and Hawaii, which is a common real-world carrier limitation, Arbyn tells the shopper directly that delivery to Alaska currently isn't available, rather than defaulting to a generic "we ship to the US" answer that would be misleading for that specific shopper.
Worked example, Philippines. A shopper writes "may deliver po ba kayo sa Cebu?" (do you deliver to Cebu). The language doesn't change the check: Arbyn still matches the named region, Cebu, against the real list, and answers with the same confidence it would in English. This works the same across every supported language, since the underlying check against your shipping data is identical regardless of what language the question arrives in.
A misspelled or informally-written region name is still matched, within reason. Shoppers write "Cali" for California, or a regional nickname instead of the formal province name. Arbyn's matching is built to handle the way people actually write, not just the exact formal string Shopify stores, so a reasonable variant of a region name still resolves to the right check.
This works identically whether the shopper is asking in chat or writing an email. The same underlying shipping data, and the same instruction to check the named region against it, is wired into both the live chat conversation and the email support channel. A customer emailing to ask about delivery to a specific province gets the same real, checked answer as one asking in the widget.
Naming a region always short-circuits the "which region are you in" follow-up question. If your coverage in a country is limited to specific regions, and a shopper only names the country, Arbyn asks a follow-up before confirming, since it genuinely can't tell which part of the country they mean. But naming the region up front skips that step entirely, because there's nothing left to ask, the answer is already knowable. That asymmetry, and the reasoning behind it, is covered in its own article.
Good to know
A definite no is still a complete, useful answer. Arbyn isn't trying to find a way to say yes. If a named region genuinely isn't covered, the shopper is told that plainly, which is more useful to them than a hedge that leaves them unsure whether to order.
A region's cost and coverage always come from your live shipping zones, never from your written shipping policy, even when a shopper asks about a specific region by name. The written policy is only used as a backup if no delivery profile exists at all.
This does not require the shopper to use a formal or official region name. Common shorthand, regional nicknames, and minor misspellings are generally still recognized.
A region question doesn't need an order or an email address first. Unlike some questions that require Arbyn to look up a specific order, a shipping-coverage question can be answered from your general store configuration alone, so it's answerable the moment a shopper asks, even before they've said anything else.
FAQ
Does Arbyn need to know which country a region is in, or can a shopper just name the region? Naming just the region is usually enough; most region names are specific enough to resolve on their own. If a region name genuinely exists in more than one country you ship to, Arbyn may ask a quick clarifying question to be sure which one is meant.
What if a shopper names a region that doesn't exist in any of my shipping zones at all, not even as an excluded example? Arbyn checks it against your real settings and, finding no match anywhere in your coverage, tells the shopper delivery there isn't currently available, the same as it would for a named region that's explicitly excluded.
Does this work the same for an email conversation as it does in the chat widget? Yes. The same shipping data and the same region-matching behaviour are wired into both channels, so a shopper gets an equally direct answer whether they're chatting live or writing in by email.
Can Arbyn quote a different shipping cost for one region versus another inside the same zone? Only if your shipping setup actually has different rates for different regions within a country, which usually means they're in different zones, not one. Regions inside the same zone share that zone's rates.
Why did Arbyn ask a follow-up question instead of just answering about my region directly? That only happens when the shopper named just the country, not the specific region, and your coverage in that country is limited to certain regions. Naming the region itself always gets a direct check and a direct answer.