The trend of e-commerce is increasing massively with time. Interestingly, the geographical borders don’t matter much when you sell online. Through online stores, you can sell your products or services all across the world. Targeting a global market is not difficult any more. You can access multiple markets from all over the world.
But, to make your place in the highly competitive environment, and to provide the potential online customers with a hassle-free experience, you need to make sure they understand your business well. For this purpose, you need to localize your business site as per the language, cultural sensitivities and preferences of the target marketplace.
Simply put, in order to gain global success, it is important to translate your content into a language that the audience understands. Along with effective translation, a number of factors including color scheme, graphics icons and cultural specifications should also be kept in mind. Therefore, you should hire a professional translation agency, and get your content translated by the native experts.
For those who wish to establish multilingual e-commerce, we have come up with some useful tips. Take a look at below-mentioned things-to-do, and you will be able to do successful e-commerce localization.
1. Identify languages that are popular among the target market
Making your online store international requires careful planning, a strategic approach and special attention to detail regarding each and every aspect. If you want to be a popular choice, you must know your audience well. You can and you should tailor your approach as per the target market. It is essentially important that you track the user behavior, know what they prefer, and find out the languages in which they feel comfortable to communicate. Once you identify your target market, you can easily determine the language they speak, and hence you can translate all your content accordingly.
2. Conduct Extensive Market Research
Just like for every other business, detailed market research is vital for designing marketing campaigns for your e-commerce business. The more you know about your audience, their needs and wants, and interests, the more effectively you can address them via creative marketing strategies. Besides, you should also find out the mediums that are widely used among the prospective market. In this way, you can target them effectively using the right sources.
For instance, in the west, the most extensively used channels include Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. But, in many countries like China, these mediums are not easily accessible, and they prefer to use other social platforms. Therefore, you must do your homework, and find the most suitable mediums according to the targeted marketplace.
3. Localize the online Storefront
Now that you have completed your research and selected the languages that are used among your potential audience, you can start translating your content. Remember that just a translation of the text into another language will not be enough. The process of localization requires a lot more than that. You also need to localize your payment method, currency, symbols, images and graphics before you enter any new market.
Particularly, the selection of appropriate colors is vital, as different nations have different associations with different colors. For instance, the yellow is Germany is for envious feelings. While in Egypt, the same color represents fortune and happiness. Therefore, you must take colors and other relevant factors into account while localizing your e-store. Â Furthermore, for effective translations and enhanced outcomes, you should hire a professional localization company.