Why Shopify Store Translation Matters – And How Smartling Makes It Easier

Running a Shopify store comes with its fair share of challenges – managing inventory, keeping track of customer service requests, marketing, and so much more. But one crucial area that often gets overlooked is the potential of expanding your reach through store translation. If you’re not considering reaching international customers in their native languages, you could be leaving a lot of revenue on the table. In fact, translating your store could be the game-changer you need to grow your customer base and increase sales.

Why translate?

It’s easy to focus on the customers you already have. After all, expanding into international markets might seem complicated and time-consuming. But the truth is, translating your content is no longer optional if you want to attract international shoppers and stay competitive in today’s global marketplace.

Here’s why: Research shows that 76% of consumers prefer to shop in their native language, and 40% won’t purchase from websites that don’t offer language options they’re comfortable with. Translation makes it easier for customers to understand your products and increases the likelihood they’ll complete a purchase. In other words, translation isn’t just about language – it’s about customer experience. It’s about meeting your customers’ expectations and providing them with a seamless shopping experience.

Overcoming translation barriers

Historically, translating a Shopify store has been a complex and time-consuming process. Many store owners have had to manually export content, copy and paste product descriptions, and use third-party solutions. This approach is not only tedious but also prone to mistakes that can hurt your business.

Here’s why translation has been such a challenge:

1. Time-consuming manual processes: Before the rise of tools like Smartling, store owners had to extract content from Shopify, upload it for translation, and then upload it back once it was completed. This process was time-consuming and often resulted in wasted time that could have been spent elsewhere.
2. Managing multilingual content: Trying to manage a multilingual store can quickly become overwhelming. From different product descriptions to translating theme elements and checkout pages, keeping everything organized across languages is no small feat.
3. Fragmented workflows: Businesses often had to use different platforms for e-commerce and translation, which leads to disconnected workflows. This can cause delays and introduce mistakes as content moves between systems.
4. Scaling global operations: Expanding into international markets requires translating a vast amount of content consistently. Without the right tools, this task becomes cumbersome, especially as the volume of content increases.

How do you know if you should translate?

If you’re unsure whether translation is the right move, here are a few things to think about:

• You’re attracting visitors from different regions: If your analytics show traffic from regions where you don’t have a customer base yet, translating your site could help you engage with those visitors more effectively. Start by localizing your content and then monitor how engagement changes.
• There’s demand for your product in other markets: If you’re seeing growing interest for your products in new regions, translating your store could open doors to new customers. For instance, if you’re selling sustainable products and notice growing interest in eco-friendly items in another country, translation could help you tap into that market.
• You’re looking to open physical stores abroad: Planning to open a physical store in another country? Test the market online first by launching a translated Shopify store. If it’s successful, you’ll already have a customer base to build on.

How to make translation easy

If you’re ready to take the leap and translate your Shopify store, you’ll want to look for a solution that’s efficient, integrated, and scalable. Here’s what you should look for in a translation tool:

1. Efficiency and time savings: The best translation tools automate the process of transferring content from your Shopify store into the translation platform. This eliminates the need for manual exporting, uploading, and tracking, saving you time and letting you focus on growing your business.
2. Everything in one place: A great translation solution should eliminate the need for juggling multiple systems. Ideally, the integration should allow you to manage your multilingual content directly within Shopify, streamlining workflows and reducing confusion.
3. Easy scaling: As your business grows, so should your translation capabilities. With fast, accurate translations, your store can scale quickly to reach international customers without the usual complexity of managing translations across different platforms.
4. Consistent brand messaging: A strong translation solution will ensure consistency across all of your product descriptions, marketing materials, and checkout pages. This ensures a cohesive brand presence across different regions, helping you build trust with international customers.

This is where Smartling comes in. The Smartling Connector for Shopify makes it easier than ever to translate your store’s content into over 450 languages. The integration automates the translation of product pages, themes, collections, and other content, allowing you to create a seamless, localized shopping experience for your international customers.

In Conclusion

Translation isn’t just about breaking language barriers – it’s about meeting your customers where they are, making their shopping experience as smooth as possible, and ultimately driving higher sales and customer loyalty. With the Smartling Connector for Shopify, you can streamline your translation process and expand into new global markets faster and more efficiently than ever before. If you’re ready to take your Shopify store international, Smartling is the right platform to help.