This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Rachel Eleza
The pandemic was a blessing in disguise. Yes! You read that right. One of the booming markets right now is the e-commerce business. Don’t get this wrong; e-commerce has been around for ages, but the pandemic made e-commerce owners unleash their creativity and soar beyond imagination.
Initially, e-commerce wasn’t taken too seriously by most people since most workers could just stroll in any of the physical outlets after closing hours and shop for whatever they wanted to get, then boom! The pandemic came, and we were all locked down to prevent Coronavirus transmission.
One of the blessings the pandemic provided was propelling most e-commerce companies to penetrate new territories, hence the need for translation. This will make it possible for people who do not understand the default language to easily purchase goods right in the corner of their bedroom and navigate the e-commerce website without hassle.
However, most e-commerce companies are doing the translation the wrong way, which will affect their business in the long run. So, let’s get to know five ways poor translation affects e-commerce.
- Brand Damage
Most e-commerce stores started from the bottom and have consistently maintained their brand’s name, living and abiding by their own standards. An e-commerce store's slogan in a particular country could mean another thing in another country.
A typical example was when KFC entered a new territory. The slogan for KFC is “its finger lickin good,” but was unintentionally changed to “eat your finger off” in China which might be found offensive and could damage the brand’s name.
Another example is Coors’ slogan “Turn It Loose”, translated to “having diarrhoea” in Spanish. No one would want to associate with such a brand, right? Poor translation shouldn’t be taken with levity.
- Lawsuits and Fines
Poor translation does more than just piss potential customers off; it could attract fines sometimes. The absence of an oxford comma in a translation attracted a fine of around $5 million for a fishing company a few years back.
It is actually tough to get everything right, even if it is your local language, but a poor translation will cause a lot of damage to your business.
- Accounting Errors
Poor translation doesn’t affect words alone; it also affects numerical characters. There are differences in numerical formats, in some countries, a comma is used to separate figures that are more than a thousand to ease readability, but in some countries, a comma represents a decimal point. So, accounting in such a case could be disastrous.
Additionally, when issuing an invoice that will contain the date. Some countries use the 04/05/2000 format, while some countries use the 05/04/2000 format.
Your invoice for the 4th of May, 2000 could also be translated to April 5, 2000.
- High Costs
Poor translation increases the amount of the e-commerce budget for translation. For every mistake and poorly translated words and sentences, you spend more money to make the proper correction.
- Loss Of Customers
An unhappy customer is a gone customer. What this means is that for every poorly translated e-commerce, there is a high probability that such e-commerce loses customers daily.
According to a study, an average customer spends around 15 to 20 seconds on a website, and once there are poor translations, they tend to exit the website immediately.
This shows that as an e-commerce store owner, you tend to lose around 50% of your potential customers due to poor translation. Can you afford to lose that amount of customers at this present age?
So, what are the ways to improve the translation, you ask?
• Start Afresh With Clean Source Content
In this present age, launching an e-commerce website has been made easy with the likes of WordPress and ready-made themes. Using the Do-It-Yourself method with free themes can adversely affect translating some content.
So, rather start with a paid theme or hire a good e-commerce website developer and the content writer then, watch your translation go as easy as possible.
• Collaboration With A Translation Company
The most efficient way of translating your e-commerce website is by collaborating with a translation service company. This way, you’re in for a good time as they help with testing, creating style guides, localization engineering, and other important things to make your business ready to compete in the new territory.
Conclusion
Don’t settle for less if you are entering new territory with your e-commerce website. Avoid the Do-It-Yourself translation and invest in a translation service company. Your business will thank you.
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Rachel Eleza
Rachel Eleza | Sciencx (2022-02-03T15:25:07+00:00) 5 Ways Poor Translation Affects E-commerce. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2022/02/03/5-ways-poor-translation-affects-e-commerce/
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