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Max Riis ChristensenApr 21, 2015 12:00:00 AM2 min read

Product text translations

One of the barriers in international e-commerce is the translation of product texts. In many industries there are a rapid flow of new products and for each product a new text is required. This leads to 2 equally important questions for an international web shop:

1. What is the best strategy for product text translation?

2. How is it done in the most cost efficient way?

 
Example translation hej 
 

What we have learned....

At first glance product text translations might seem like a simple task. We here at MakesYouLocal have worked a lot with product translations, we have grown wiser and don’t consider it a simple task anymore.
 
The first of the two questions raised above are critical in order to make sure that there is a return on investment in the translations you do. And the answer to these questions is not always clear.

The answer is different depending on many factors. First of all your industry and the competition.

But also the product complexity, your online marketing and SEO strategy and the language of your target market influence the decision.

 

A few examples:

  • Your option to use Google Shopping is influenced by your onsite translations. Google Shopping will only be possible to use, if your texts are in the local language or in English. English might be the easy choice, but if the product complexity is high or the target group in the new country are uncomfortable with English, how will it then influence the conversion rate?

  • What is the turn-around time on the products you sell and do they generate enough revenue to justify a translation, or should you perhaps choose to translate only some of your products?

  • Can you change the way sizes or colours are displayed or use database fields with product data, in order to reduce the cost per product translation?

  • How will the SEO traffic be influenced if you only translate the title and the description, but not meta texts?

Call us to discuss the pros and cons of the different choices!

 

How to get the product texts translated?

To be effective requires access to the right translators as well as the right tools and experience.

Having our head office in central Copenhagen is a great advantage, since Copenhagen is a popular city for international students. This gives us access to well educated students living close by, and importantly these students have only been living in Copenhagen for a short time, which means that their native language is still perfect. Understanding this made us realise that we would be able to connect these students with web shops in the need for translations.

To increase speed and quality we developed a tool to help the students. This tool makes it easy to handle the import / export of the texts from the web shop, as well as making the actual translation task easier and faster with no decrease in quality (which we by the way also monitor using the tool).

 

Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have questions or would like to have a proposal.

Max Riis Christensen

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