Retail & Ecommerce Translation Services

Why trust us with your Retail & E-commerce translations?

Specialism and experience

It is not only our decades of experience working with market-leading retailers that produce such accurate and insightful translations, but also the dedicated work of our native translators who lend their sector expertise and local market insight to retail translation projects. When combined, these key components deliver culturally-aware content with flair and precision. Only such translations can represent true value to consumers, maintaining relevance, enhancing loyalty, and driving sales.

Consistent quality

Internal and external material alike needs consistency to ensure understanding and impact. This is exactly why we put rigorous quality controls in place, such as building extensive Translation Memories, collaborating with you to create and approve tailored glossaries, and working in line with ISO 9001:2015 quality standards. Our retail translation clients profit time and time again from the tightly-targeted, unified translations this approach produces, as well as the subsequent trust and respect it builds amongst readers.

Website and software localisation

We recognise the importance of digital expertise and use our technological talents to pass on considerable cost, quality, and consistency to our clients. Through skilful implementation of Translation Memory technology, portals, and plug-ins, we can facilitate better user experiences and ensure parity across your market offerings. Our eCommerce platform integration does just that by immediately processing updates for translation on the original site and publishing them to your localised site after review, bypassing potential time zone delays and administrative burden.

Reliability

Rapidly evolving markets can change your retail translation requirements at any given moment, so you need a solution as reliable and capable as The Translation People. We have the sound, scalable infrastructure to handle quick turnarounds and large volumes, and your dedicated Account Manager will make it their job to know your requirements inside out. Our reputation is built on fulfilling projects smoothly and economically, because we understand that your business depends on it.

Comprehensive solutions

Thanks to our full-service capabilities we can cater to all the retail industry’s fast-paced localisation requirements, from video subtitling and voiceover to reformatting of translated artwork packages ready for print. Better still, our custom-built client portal streamlines workflows and provides project updates to optimise clarity and efficiency in an often restless sector.

Our Retail Translation Process

1. Receive the document: You send us the document/s for translation in a variety of methods, including secure file transfer.
2. Translation Memory: We analyse the document against our Translation Memory database to see whether there is any previously translated content or repeated phrasing, both of which will be translated automatically saving you time and money.
3. Translation and review: Our expert translators get to work translating the document/s, with draft translations reviewed for accuracy and suitability.
4. Quality assurance and delivery: Before delivery, the translation undergoes our strict quality assurance process.

Retail & E-commerce Translation FAQs

What is retail translation?

Retail translation services translate all manner of communications in the retail sector. With an ever-increasing number of people browsing and buying products online, businesses in this industry risk falling behind if they do not invest time and resource in communicating effectively with current and prospective customers.

To be truly effective, translation in the retail industry needs to reflect and respect cultural expectations and norms in target languages and regions. It’s not just a case of running website copy or product descriptions through an automated translation tool: it’s about speaking to people in language they understand and can connect with. And because this level of communication requires in-depth knowledge and a wealth of experience, working with specialist retail translation providers is the best way to do it.

Our retail translation work is in line with ISO 9001:2015 quality standards, giving you the assurance of the highest levels of quality. We have worked with global brands and local businesses alike to create and implement translation strategies that align perfectly with their needs, and we’ve refined our offering over the years with everything we’ve learned.

Why is retail translation important?

Whether you’re an international brand with global recognition or a family business selling from your spare bedroom, effective communication with customers is crucial. They need to understand what you’re selling, what your business values, and how they can make a purchase.

Here are some benefits of retail translation:

• Expand your reach: moving into new areas is how businesses grow, and whether you’re a big business looking to expand into a new country or a small business looking to start shipping internationally, we can help.
• Retain your appeal: tastes and buyer preferences aren’t uniform around the world, so communicating the appeal and benefits of your products in a way that resonates is a crucial part of engaging new customers. Our translators can help you to generate buy-in from new audiences, wherever they are.
• Brand loyalty: as you expand, your brand will become more recognisable to more people, and making sure you’re communicating effectively is a way to make sure this recognition remains positive.

What is an example of commercial translation?

There are many applications for translation in the retail industry, and one of the most significant is translation of e-commerce websites. This is an extensive undertaking, requiring a combination of services including translation, transcreation, software localisation and more. But done properly, it ensures a seamless, high-quality user experience for users in all regions. Getting this right before you launch in a new region is far more effective than trying to put out fires caused by incomplete or incorrect translations after launch.

Some additional examples of retail translation include:

• Point-of-sale promotional materials: encouraging customers to make additional purchases at the point of sale is an important consideration in retail, and ensuring the calls to action resonate in their target language can facilitate greater buy-in.
• Packaging: as well as making sure they recognise your brand and identify with your messaging, giving information about ingredients, processes, safety considerations and so on is a way to build trust and increase the likelihood of a purchase.
• Supplier contracts: expanding into new regions means working with new suppliers, and communicating with them in their own language is just as important as doing so with customers.
• Customer reviews: building trust with customers takes time, and translating existing reviews into the local language of new regions can be a way to retain and leverage this existing goodwill.
• Marketing campaigns: promoting your business in new regions is a fundamental consideration when trying to build traction and attract new customers. Marketing campaigns must resonate with their intended audience, making effective translation and transcreation of paramount importance.

How much is retail translation?

This will vary depending on the combination of services required, the volume of content to be translated, the target and source languages, and myriad other factors. We pride ourselves on providing bespoke quotes for every project, as a way of ensuring that our customers pay what is fair for the retail translation they require.

To get a quote, please get in touch with our team with information about your project. We’ll review the details and come back to you with a breakdown of what you can expect to pay.

Also note that for ongoing projects you stand to make savings, as we build sophisticated translation memories for each of our clients. With each completed project, these translation memory databases become more expansive, and provide a quick way for our translators to automatically translate key phrases and terms that have been encountered before.

What are some good e-commerce translation tools?

Many tools are available for translating content in the e-commerce and retail arena, including:

• Translation Management Systems that facilitate collaboration between all people working on a project, from clients, to account managers, to the translators themselves.
• Machine Translation Engines which can provide a good starting point that can be used to support and underpin human translation.
• WooCommerce Plugins and similar tools for other CMSs which provide automated translations for existing web copy. However bear in mind that the standard of translations on offer may be quite low, as the plugins are limited in their ability to communicate nuance in a way that really resonates with human users.

• Translation of 30,000 words into 16 languages for patients on how to improve health, fitness and reduce obesity.
• Translation of User Manuals and Engineer's Notes into 14 languages for an engineering company.
• Translation & subtitling of internal communications in 5 languages for a client in the food & drink sector.
• Software Translations for an online payment system into over 50 languages.