Nowadays, any organization looking to thrive needs to think seriously about global expansion, but there’s no possible way to expand without being able to communicate effectively with your various customers, vendors and stakeholders in multiple languages. That’s why, in 2023, e-commerce localization has become one of the industry’s biggest trends.
E-commerce localization is the process of taking your content, such as product descriptions, reviews, blog posts and even chat messages, from its original language and translating it into other languages so that your content and company are accessible to global audiences. Additionally, teams today no longer reside in one branch in the same region. They’re everywhere. This means if you plan to hire outside of your local region, your worldwide employees will need to be able to understand your online content, too. The benefit here is that you’ll be able to capitalize on remote work in a way that allows your business to test new markets without having to invest in traditional offshoring, making the potential reward substantial.
More Access Means More Choice
It’s no secret that consumers want access to a larger range of brands and goods. More access means more variety and choice. This also means there’s more opportunity for retailers. Just to be clear, you don’t need to be a big company to think about international expansion. Even small to medium-sized businesses can now compete on an international scale.
One of the most important business goals for any retailer is to increase their customer base. While it might sound obvious that the more visitors that can use your website in their primary language, the more potential customers you have, the tricky part is putting this into action.
Authenticity is Key, Localization to the Rescue
A key component of translating your content correctly is to ensure that the authenticity remains well intact. You only have one opportunity to present yourself to each individual new customer. If you do this well, your customer base can increase from hundreds to thousands quickly. The opposite can also take place, especially if they can tell the translations aren’t authentic and don’t fall in line with colloquial terminology, trends, and even the latest slang that’s become part of the culture.
What’s required is talent with a good understanding of culture and that can use tools to capture hidden nuances, meaning, tradition and subtext through the localization of content.
While this sounds complicated, e-commerce translation has become a major trend this year. Translation has been made easy thanks to localization companies that offer full suites of artificial intelligence-powered translation services in addition to a new Shopify translation app for merchants.
Following the footsteps of major companies like Alibaba, Walmart, H&M, and Zara, retailers big and small are now jumping onto the bandwagon to obtain the benefits of translation.
Checkout Page Woes
According to research by Common Sense Advisory, “In spite of globalization and the growing use of English as a global language, people in 2020 still prefer consuming information in their own language.” As the world becomes more multicultural, retailers in English-speaking countries also need to broaden the languages they choose to advertise and market with to appeal to all audiences within each region.
One common error many consumers have encountered is that when it comes to the checkout page, they have failed to make their purchase because they can’t figure out how to calculate the cost in their local currency or even use their local credit card. Imagine the additional revenue you could be gaining if your customers could only check out and claim their purchase.
Industry Growth
This year, 20.8 percent of retail purchases are predicted to take place online. By 2026, this number is expected to grow by 3 percent and total over $8.1 trillion.
The internet age and globalization have brought us closer together than ever before. However, language barriers still exist and remain a challenge for businesses to overcome. Fortunately, AI-powered translation tools have revolutionized the way we work and can connect with others. This is why e-commerce translation has become one of this year’s biggest trends.
Hila Shitrit-Nissim is the chief marketing officer at BLEND, an AI-localization platform that works with brands globally to help implement stronger localization practices and strategies.
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