As online shopping becomes increasingly widespread, commercial formats have already seen drastic changes. Statistics show that in 2024, the digital buyer population worldwide reached an impressive 2.71 billion, indicating a 2.7% increase compared to the previous year.
The E-commerce sector’s expansion is also evident in the projected surge in global E-commerce sales, which are expected to surpass $7 trillion in 2024. This surge is propelled by the rise of mobile shopping, the widespread use of social media, and the increasing popularity of subscription services.
The mobile E-commerce segment, in particular, has shown remarkable dominance within the online retail sector, with sales amounting to $4.089 trillion globally in 2023. Predictions suggest this figure will rise to $4.999 trillion by 2025, underlining the critical role of mobile platforms in the E-commerce landscape. Electronic commerce is also a highly globalized field: for example, a U.S.-based company may produce goods in China and establish marketing in European countries where there is greater demand for their product.
We all know about the most popular foreign online shopping platforms that boast astronomical sales figures and the ability to deliver any product worldwide. Extending the boundaries of businesses to include foreign countries presents new opportunities for web store owners in terms of marketing their product and generating profit—and today, there are readily available and affordable ways to do it.
3 Key Ways to Approach E-commerce Translation
The first step towards globalizing your commercial company is to create a multi-language web store. According to CSA analytics, 75% of users prefer shopping online in their native language. This means that most visitors will leave your website if they cannot understand the content. It is therefore crucial to ensure that any content reaching a foreign demographic is as easy to read as possible.
There are several solutions that are commonly used by commercial resource owners:
1) Machine Translation
This method is inexpensive and relatively easy to implement. The text undergoes language translation using specialized software and is then added to the website. However, when it comes to creating a high-quality localized version of the text, machine translation tools are not quite up to the task. Machine translation technology, unfortunately, is unable to accurately reproduce a human language at this stage of development. Further, using these kinds of translations is often considered disrespectful towards the consumer. The misinterpretation of words and incorrect sentence structure are not uncommon in machine translation. The meaning of the translated text is often far from the original: it may be difficult to understand, and sometimes contains blatant mistakes. The product descriptions generated for AliExpress is one such infamous example.
2) Creating an English Version of a Website
Preparing and setting up a multi-purpose single-language version of a website is a promising alternative to machine translation, and selecting a popular, widely spoken language optimizes the cost associated with professional translation. However, this option is not ideal for all countries. For example, in Hungary and Spain, the percentage of the population who speak a foreign language is relatively low. The same holds true for many other European regions. Therefore, a user’s English may not be advanced enough for them to fully understand the website’s content in order to keep them shopping comfortably.
3) Professional Multi-Language Website Localizations
For businesses and entrepreneurs committed to conquering a foreign market, promoting their product/brand, and beating their competitors, professional ecommerce localization is the only way to guarantee success. Translating your entire website into users’ native languages and adapting it linguistically, stylistically, and culturally will be more credible and conducive to conversion processes (facilitating purchases, filling out contact forms, subscribing to newsletters, etc.). For the best results, partner with a localization company to help create a perfect image for your business in foreign markets.
What Is Website Translation and Localization Good For?
Traffic Growth
Adding a new language version of a website will lead to an organic growth in web traffic, and more languages provide a broader range of semantics. Covering new keywords in a foreign language strengthens the website’s potential, since it will now appear in the target region’s search results. At the same time, it makes sense to translate a website tailored to a region where the audience actively uses more than one language. For instance, in Ukraine it is worth considering translating a website into Russian and Ukrainian; in Canada, into English and French; and in Switzerland, into French, German, and Italian.
Building a Company Image
Preparing for entry into a market lays the groundwork for building the brand’s image under new market conditions. A high-quality website translation, just like a shop window, highlights the company’s status and makes a desirable first impression on visitors.
Foreign Audience Loyalty
A website that gives users the option to choose their preferred language is more credible; in addition, content that is translated properly will reassure users that the quality of the company’s products and services is just as high. A localized web store will help convert average consumers into happy customers, who may in turn play a role in shaping the site’s rating through independent resources as well as sharing their experience with friends and acquaintances. Using word of mouth testimonials is one of the most effective and efficient promotional methods.
Competitiveness
When promoting a website abroad, one should consider local marketplaces where similar products are being sold. Lack of proper translation means that since users won’t have adequate information regarding product benefits and the company’s reliability, they will ultimately gravitate toward what they are more familiar with. For a web store to be competitive in different environments and attract new customers, thorough content adaptation is a necessity.
Improving Behavioral Factors
It takes no more than a couple of seconds for a web store visitor to decide whether they will stay or leave. A professionally translated language version helps increase session time and decrease bounce rate (i.e., the number of users who leave your resource immediately after arriving to it).
Impact on Conversions and Sales
Creating a multi-language web store is the best way to tell a foreign audience about yourself: to share the company’s strengths, product features and differentiators, as well as terms of payment and delivery, testimonials, certificates, and licenses—in other words, everything that will ultimately impact their decision to make their purchase here rather than elsewhere. Localization also helps incentivize repeat purchases. Native-language content and high-quality products and services will encourage the customer to come back to the website.