As an eCommerce retailer, we are always looking for new approaches to refine our store items, maintain satisfied consumers, boost traffic, and convert more purchases.
A few years ago, building a multilingual eCommerce store used to be a headache for developers but thanks to technological advancements, it is now much easier. Fortunately, Shopify provides you with a lot of options for achieving your objectives.
In this blog, we will be discussing multilingual eCommerce, its benefits, and the steps to follow in order to set up a multilingual e-commerce store on Shopify.
If you’re new to Shopify, read our detailed guide on How does Shopify work.
What is a Multilingual Store?
A multilingual store communicates with international customers in the respected language of their country or region.
What other way can you make it apparent to shoppers who don’t speak your native tongue what you’re selling? How will customers be able to find their way through your store to make a purchase?
They will not. Customers will not buy from your company unless they can rapidly read and understand product descriptions and navigation.
You will attract, engage, and hopefully convert your foreign visitors into consumers by creating a bilingual store. As a result, you will eventually reach a broader global audience.
Importance of Multilingual Ecommerce
But why is multilingualism so crucial in the first place?
Why should you be concerned about creating a multilingual Shopify store correctly?
To get things going, you’ll need to raise your profile and attract as many people as possible. That’s why it’s crucial to be indexed by Google and other search engines and to be searchable in several languages if you’re going global.
Second, you want to convert all of these possible clients into actual buyers and repeat customers. That’s why it’s critical to provide a consistent and optimized flow in your client’s native language, from the page he lands to the thank you page.
Setup a Multilingual Shopify store and leave all the product management to Shopify PIM.
Benefits of Multilingual Ecommerce
1. Increased Customer Reach
By creating an eCommerce store that can be viewed by thousands, if not millions, of online shoppers worldwide, you might potentially increase the number of people who visit your store.
Many firms were allowed to expand globally when technology and the internet were coupled. According to Statista, over 75% of the world’s population is non-English speaking. In order to expand globally, every online retailer must be aware of this.
Have you considered the advantages of joining these markets? You may get all of these advantages by using a single solution: a multilingual eCommerce store.
According to the Harvard Business Review, around 72.4 percent of buyers prefer to make purchases from a store that displays information in their native language. Now, if you want to offer your goods and services globally, those amazing statistics are all the more reasons to develop a multilingual store.
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2. Build Trust
You want new visitors to your website to feel at ease as soon as they arrive. The level of comfort people experiences while interacting with a familiar webshop or brick-and-mortarWhat are Brick and Mortar? Brick and Mortar is a business with at least one physical store for the sale of its storefront. Hence it is... More location where they’ve previously made a purchase.
Customers may be hesitant to trust you. However, having basic product information in their local languages can offer them a sense of comfort.
3. Improve Conversion Rates
According to the research conducted by CSA, 76 percent of customers spend most of their time (or all of their time) on sites that provide information in their native language.
Owning a bilingual website means that international clients visiting the site are less likely to abandon it than those who depart immediately after realizing that the information is unavailable in their native language.
As a result, your bounce rate will decline. It means that your website will be able to achieve some effective conversion rates thanks to the multilingual feature.
4. Polish SEO
In many countries, Google is not the default search engine. As a result of its ease, native language search engines are prevalent.
Your website will not appear in those native language search engines unless it is multilingual. Optimizing your store that supports several languages for improved SEO (Search Engine Optimization) would be wise.
When you provide multilingual alternatives on your website, your chances of being discovered by various search engines triple.
3 Ways to Set up a Multilingual Store
There is no doubt that Shopify is a fantastic platform for conducting business. On the other hand, the lack of support for multilingual stores is a flaw that cannot be effectively addressed.
But what I tell you is that you didn’t have to speak only one language all of the time? Yes, you can add multi-language support to your Shopify store using the following solutions:
1. Create one store for each language
The concept of opening many stores may be appealing if you have a lot of bandwidth at your disposal. Even after that, maintaining and administering several storefronts can be tedious. It is the option that consumes the most bandwidth, time, and money.
Furthermore, even if you have the financial resources to maintain several storefronts, update different website databases with new products, and make updates. Working stock levels will make things more difficult.
Your challenges don’t stop there. When you launch numerous shops, you’ll need to translate your web pages for every piece of information and product you sell on your Shopify store.
2. Use Shopify multilingual theme
There is a typical misunderstanding that users have while setting up their multilingual Shopify site. They assume that if they choose a multilingual-ready theme, all of their problems will be solved. No, even the presence of a language changer doesn’t make the job easier.
Using such themes may appear to be a good idea at first. However, it will not be fruitful in the long run. You risk having your Shopify store’s functionality limited if you choose one of those themes with a language changer. Furthermore, some of those themes translate the written content, not the messages sent by the systems.
Furthermore, this approach necessitates technical support because you’ll need to translate standard text, HTML, and your store’s template language with extreme caution.
Shopify’s templating language, Liquid, keeps track of your on-screen presentation, limiting your translations to text. The Liquid filters, tags, and objects aren’t handy.
Yes, you can utilize a multilingual theme, which appears simple. However, it is difficult to implement technically. It may be possible for you if you have HTML knowledge; otherwise, things may not work for you.
3. Use multilingual Shopify applications
Installing a multilingual app over your Shopify platform is the simplest solution that eventually translates your store’s contents. It saves you the hustle of setting up several Shopify stores and the time and work of employing a bilingual theme.
Apimio is a great tool that allows you to add multiple languages for your product information. You can manually add and edit various languages. The customer can read product descriptions and other information in their respective language.
Using applications to add different languages to your business is straightforward; all you have to do is install hundreds of languages on your Shopify store in a matter of minutes.
Furthermore, some of these automation technologies assist in automatically translating messages generated by the system across your shop (including email notifications and checkout).
Conclusion
In a nutshell, changing your single-language website to a multilingual one is the equivalent of expanding your business internationally. You can master international sales like a pro if you have the necessary tools and understand the rules and regulations for selling in other countries.
Check out this excellent product information management tool – Apimio – if you want a ready-to-use platform to efficiently take your local business to an international level with multilingual possibilities.
It is a comprehensive e-commerce solution that allows you to upgrade your monolingual store to a multilingual store and let you store, manage, optimize, and syndicate your products across multiple platforms.
Frequently Asked Questions
Multilingual ecommerce refers to the practice of selling products or services online in more than one language to cater to customers from different linguistic backgrounds.
Yes, Shopify is multilingual. You can have a multilingual store on Shopify by using different language versions of your theme, translating your checkout and menus, and using apps to help with translations.
You need to add language switcher buttons to your store so visitors can easily switch between languages or add translations for your products, pages, and blog posts, expanding your reach to different markets.
Multilingual e-commerce is important because it allows businesses to reach a global audience and sell their products or services to customers who speak different languages.
i. Enable multiple currencies
ii. Set up international shipping
iii. Translate your store
iv. Offer local payment options
v. Consider local marketing
