Everyone knows to some extent that the internet has been a revolutionary force in the world, creating new sectors and industries one one hand while been a revolutionary force for change in legacy industries, such as the automotive, retail and media sectors. And, as a result, it seems that everyone these days is trying to get a piece of the action.
E-commerce is one of the industries that the internet has given birth to, fuelled in part by the rise of related and ancillary services – photo sharing apps such as Instagram, e-commerce CM systems such as Shopify, and online global banking operators such as Transferwise. On the other hand, the democratisation of education and information has made many people realise that they too can live the dream by launching a successful e-commerce store (or two). The interaction of these factors has led to today’s value of e-commerce reaching 1.6 trillion dollars.
The key aspect of all these developments is that owners of e-commerce sites are no longer restricted to seeking in one market, country or even continent, and this means that e-commerce sites that aim to sell internationally probably need to translate, or localise, their store into the languages of their target markets.
Why? Well, the first aim of any business is to let as many people who could benefit from that business’ goods and services know that the business is, well, in business, and the second aim is to convince these people to buy. Localising your e-commerce store into the languages of the markets you wish to enter is essential if you want to gain exposure, have good search engine rankings and build trust and rapport with potential clients.
But Which Languages?
This depends on a particular store’s own vision and strategy. That being said, Londinium Language Services recommends the following languages:
Estimates of non-native English speakers range from 470 million to 2 billion people across the world. Given that native speakers total around 350 million, the vast majority of English speakers reside outside the Anglosphere.
Russian is the second most used language on the internet and is spoken by large numbers of people across the former Soviet Union in countries such as Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Belarus.
Russia also has its own versions of popular Western services such as Facebook (VK) and Google (Yandex). Not having your site localised into Russian will make it much harder for your e-commerce store to be ranked on Russian search sites.
In terms of English knowledgeability, France is one of the weaker countries. (I guess the effects of centuries of rivalry between France and England continue.) Indeed, the French are well-known for refusing to speak English, so it is essential to present your offerings in French if you wish to sell to the French market. By the way, localising your e-commerce store will also allow for French speaking Swiss, Canadians and Cameroonians (amongst other Francophone West African countries) to visit and consider your goods and services.
Despite its great success following WW2, Japan still has the lowest rate of success in internationally recognised English proficiency examinations such as TOEFL and IELTS. This means that you really have to localise your e-commerce store into Japanese if you wish to gain any traction, especially as the Japanese have really taken to the ethos of online shopping as around 50% of Japanese people surveyed claim that they do all their purchasing online.
E-commerce is growing at one its fastest rates in Europe in Germany, with over 85% of internet users making purchases online, and most prefer to buy from German language e-commerce stores, with many Germans (around 40%) claiming that would not buy from global brands that do not have a German version of their website.
Italy is the fifth largest European e-commerce market, with close to 70% of Italians using the internet and over 1/3 shopping online. In terms of customer loyalty, the rate in Italy is around 50% which means that the probability of repeat business from Italians is very high if you succeed in satisfying them the first time.
There are more native speakers of Portuguese than there are of French and German, and the majority of them use the internet, and around 20% shop online and buy from foreign e-commerce stores.
Spanish is the second most common language in the world and the fourth most used online. However, this only represents 5% of total online content, meaning that Spanish speakers are starving for localised e-commerce stores.
Arabic is spoken by over 400 million people from Morocco all the way to the border of Iran and Iraq. Egypt and Saudi Arabia lead the region in terms of e-commerce sales which total around 200 billion dollars per annum. However, the Arabic spoken across the MENA region not homologous by any measure, so it may be valuable to have your store localised into the Arabic dialect of the market you wish to enter.
The Londinium Take Away
Here, we have shown that localising your e-commerce store is more-or-less an essential if you aim to sell in markets where foreign languages are king. However, this is just the beginning, as marketing media and advertising campaigns too will have to be localised or completely thrown out in favour of a be-spoke marketing campaign for a particular market.