Getting Global Sales With Ecommerce
There are a number of ways to approach global sales with ecommerce. I was surprised that I couldn't find many other articles on this subject. If you spot any let me know, I would like to learn more myself.
One way is to provide a local version of your site for each country you hope to sell to. This is the most ambitious and costly option. Firstly there are the hosting requirements and registration of many local domain extensions. The prices of products could be shown in a local currency. It is important to consider exchange rates and factor these into the design if they are not automatically adjusted by your shopping cart.
The text would need to be translated into the local language, by someone who understands the local voice, not just direct translations. A poor translation would be worse than no translation, many words like 'email' or 'podcast' have become the accepted term in all languages. Once there are sites written in many languages there will undoubtedly be enquires written in the languages. This means someone needs to be able translate these for whoever is running the sales at the site, and write back to the potential customers in their own language.
For big companies I'm sure creating many local sites is a great way to ensure global sales. For someone running an ecommerce site on their own, or with a small team, the complexity and cost of running many sites will be prohibitive.
Global Sales With One Site
Luckily global sales are possible without spending a fortune on design and translations. My ecommerce sites are written in English as it is my first language. Apparently there are 508 million people that speak English as their first or second language. That's about ten times more people than live in my country. Other popular languages like Mandarin, Hindi, Arabic, German, French, Spanish and Russian will appeal to a global market as they are spoken in various places all over the world.
This means the global market can be reached by only providing one language version of an ecommerce site. The English language has many variations even within England. It has more variations between Scotland, Wales, Ireland, America, Australia and other countries where it is the first language. To avoid alienating customers in the global market all content should be written without colloquialisms and slang.
Some products may have different names in various English speaking countries. 'Pants' means something different in England compared with America. One approach to this problem would be to state all the known names for the product on the page and title. This could be a bit confusing and would not be as good for SEO as sticking to one version though. If you only use one version of the product name stick to the most widely used one in your home territory.
As well as maintaining a neutral voice in the site, marketing of the site can aid in achieving global sales. This could take the form of link building in directories and related websites from your target countries. There may also be scope for press releases to review websites, news sites or print media. If your business offers something that isn't readily available from their local retailers more interest will be taken.
I imagine the major factors that put off potential global customers are the price of shipping, and the trust involved in ordering from another country.
Posted by Tom on Sun 8th Feb 2009
