A Guide to Listings and Translations
Entering a new market can feel like a complex process, with endless regulations to follow and logistical challenges to overcome fast becoming overwhelming for even the most prepared of sellers and business owners.
One area that is often underappreciated but requires the same level of care and attention as your manufacturer contracts and shipping logistics, is translation and the very text that comes with each of your listings – that is, the localisation of the buyer experience.
When you are browsing for and purchasing a new product, whether or not you know exactly what you are looking for, the chances are that you want to be able to read the accompanying listing text in your own native language. And while English is, to many of us, the obvious choice for a broad and all-encompassing language, only a third of the world speaks English.
What does that mean? We should all be doing more to produce localised content which really sells our products to the target audience. And our team are here to help.
The Importance of Localised Listings
A recent survey found that more than two thirds of Amazon customers are more inclined to buy a product if the description is presented in their own language. From that, you might conclude that simply popping your English description into Google Translate is enough – but you’d be wrong.
Localised listings are a lot more than just a translated description – including the price, considering the different marketplace obstacles and preferred ways of shopping, highlighting the appropriate shipping information for each audience, and even considering the visual presentation of imagery.
Translations themselves should be professional, clear, and they should make sense. Look at it this way – as an English language reader, you can probably tell when something has been loosely translated from another language via Google Translate (and in most cases this is enough to turn us off a product or drive us away from purchase). If we feel that way about our own language, the same has to apply the other way round.
The Impact of Poorly Translated Content
Another study implies that over half of Amazon customers will leave a product page due to poorly translated language. This leads to low traffic and a subsequent low conversion rate which, you guessed it, impacts your sales and profit.
Let’s take a closer look at what this means.
When you don’t put adequate thought into the translation of a product description, you will find yourself missing out on key search terms that the local audience might use – and which, when used properly, could drive them straight to your site. Amazon works on an algorithm, in much the same way as Google does, and so proper use of keywords is integral to growing a sustainable flow of site traffic and keeping your listing visible.
And then we come to the low conversion rate. Without traffic, and if your product listings are presented poorly with incorrect use of local terminology and unsympathetic imagery, you will lose customers. It’s as simple as that.
The more you can do to localise the experience for customers in each location, the more reliable and reputable your brand will seem to them, and the more sales you will make.
For more information on how to enhance the success of your listings, through proper translation and a localised approach, get in touch with our team today.