Translate Your Shopify Store Properly with LangShop

Doing business is a complex and exciting thing that requires a lot of time, effort and considerable knowledge. If the business becomes international, it is okay if it needs more resources. One of the surest and easiest ways to start your own business is to open a store on Shopify.

But how to improve sales on this platform and save resources? The solution is simple: make your store multilingual and localize it correctly. This will help you not only improve your sales, but also create the right image in the local market and get a good reputation among customers who are not familiar with your brand.

Localization is a powerful technique for improving sales in international business. As a result, many global brands are constantly entering new markets. Localization makes any concepts, ideas or meanings from one culture understandable to the carriers of another.
Do you think translation is a difficult process? If you think that it’s not, you are deeply mistaken. Localization is an even more complex and resource-intensive process, because translation is only an integral part of it. Adapting ideas and concepts is much more important than literally transferring meanings from another culture.

In this article, you will learn how to properly localize your Shopify store and how the LangShop app will help you with its functionality.

What is localization?

As you may have already understood, localization is the process of adapting ideas, meanings and concepts from one market or culture for another, in which they may be completely incomprehensible or misunderstood.

The purpose of localization is to make it understandable for people of a different culture something that in a literal translation would be for them at best a set of words, and at worst something offensive.

For example, in post-Soviet countries, the term “bread and butter” is more understandable to the population than the term “sandwich”. Moreover, in this region they are very similar, but different concepts. “Bread and Butter” can be understood literally or as any set of ingredients on a bread or bun. The “sandwich” should be more than “bread and butter”, with more ingredients.

And if you think that there are few such concepts, then it’s not like that at all. The situation is not the easiest with terms, but everything is much more complicated with abstract concepts and ideas.

For example, in Russian there is a word “toska”, and it is very polysemous, but any native speaker of Russian will understand exactly what someone is talking about in context. It could mean unreasonable sadness, and lack of desire to do anything, or vice versa, longing for someone or something, or depression, or blues, or nostalgia, or unrequited love.

How to present this concept correctly? Let’s say that things are not so difficult with English. But with Chinese or Finnish, for example? Surely there are similar terms in these languages. The main task of localization is to convey this in such a way that a person understands the meaning and feels it.

There are concepts that have no direct analogue in other languages. For example, in French there is the word “dépaysement” — the feeling that occurs when you are away from home in another country. In Spanish there is the term “duende” — literally, the power of art, which changes the perception of the world. And in Portuguese there is the word “saudade” — a feeling of longing for someone or something that a person loves but has lost.

With these concepts everything is much more complicated, because there is no direct translation, and it is impossible to translate them in a few words. But if the localizer meets them somewhere, then his task is to give the reader, viewer or client to feel the meaning of the term.

How to localize correctly?

Any localization of a business or brand is a complex process that consists not only of translation, but also of information gathering, marketing, social media management, etc. If you take on all this chaotically, just to achieve a result, then it is unlikely that something good will come of it.

Therefore, you need to organize your localization into a complete plan – strategy. All points on the implementation of localization should be clearly spelled out here.

What are the benefits of a localization strategy? First, you can fully see even from point A to point B. It is normal if there are nuances as your plan is implemented, but huge and unforeseen problems are unlikely to appear.

Secondly, you can calculate the investment: how much you will spend on localization, how much funds are needed to support a localized store, and the expected income.

How to localize your store correctly?

The localization strategy includes many points, so you can make many mistakes in its creation. But there are a number of things to consider if you want everything to work well.

Localization is not translation

If you are looking to localize your store for a specific region or market, always remember that translation and localization are not the same thing. Accordingly, the approach should also be different.

You don’t need to literally translate your store’s content, but adapt it to the realities of your chosen market. If you are going to do it yourself, then prepare well, study the profile resources and consult with people who can share with you the experience of localizing something for this region.

Are your products in line with market demand?

Not surprisingly, there is no demand for the product everywhere. It’s one thing if you are trying to sell alcohol to Muslim countries: in many of them this is prohibited by national law. But here we are talking about the actual demand for the product.

For example, the demand for coffee in Turkey is relatively low: Turks drink more than 6 kilograms of tea per capita and have their own tea plantations in the country. Tea just supplanted coffee. Therefore, bringing coffee to Turkey is not a good idea.

But in the markets of Scandinavian countries, your coffee can find a place, because the first five places in the consumption of this product in the world are occupied by the countries of this region. It is also profitable to sell agricultural products and grains: the climate does not favor high yields there. Selling seafood there is a bad idea, because the region itself exports them all over the world.

How to localize with LangShop: features and functions

In order to properly translate your Shopify store and localize it to improve sales, there are many services and tools out there. Check out LangShop, an app that helps you with translation, localization and SEO for your store.

LangShop translates content of Shopify stores, but how to choose the right languages to improve sales? Use the statistics to find out which countries your customers are from. The LangShop app translates into 241 languages, but Shopify limits them to 5 in a single store.

If you need to translate specific terms, you can manually edit the text. This is useful for localization if you want to improve your sales. LangShop translates content in the background and saves you time.

The app automatically detects the client’s location and translates content for a specific region. But how to translate dynamic content? Don’t worry, the app can handle this too.

LangShop has a number of SEO-friendly features. The app creates a sitemap according to the rules for search engine optimization. LangShop also specifies the language in the URL, which has a positive effect on SEO.

If you need to translate your store professionally, the app has a PRO translation function. LangShop provides a translation history so you can choose the best variant.

Take advantage of the 14-day free trial to test all features yourself. Application support is available 24/7. Improve your Shopify sales now with LangShop!

About the Author

Dmitry Tkalich is a Search Engine Optimisation specialist with 8+ years experience. He started his SEO journey with the Russian Internet and in 2015 he started promoting projects for an English-speaking audience. He is currently promoting Langshop, a fast growing app for Shopify.