I have started my business as an online retail site in
a country in the EU. Do I need to completely restructure it, when I cross a
border into the neighboring EU country? Really? Can I not just call my
translation agency and the problem is solved? I mean everyone is doing this!
Have you ever taken a look at a multi-country online
shop? Take IKEA as a sample:
They share some basics but in reality it’s just like
having a different shop in each country. They are all distinct. Even the first
blue line doesn’t have the same items listed. Also, if you click on privacy
policy at the bottom of the page you will notice the content is quite
different. Each country website operates under a different legal system within
the EU.
Is there a solution to this problem, disregarding the
abyss of decision making in Brussels? European legislators and politicians are
working on the legal problems in copyright and VAT in the Digital Single
Market, but the core problem isn’t mentioned much.
Multilingual Market
The core problem is the organization of the
multilingual product offering. Why? There must be flexibility
in the online presentation of the shop to help the customer find what he/she is
looking for.
Surely, this is basically a technical problem. And yes, there are solutions
available. However, this is not being addressed. Currently, the website, not
the products, is structured. This is repeated for every website in each
country. It is very expensive. Worse, it does not achieve the main goal –
help the customer find what he/she wants to buy.
Instead companies should structure the products in a
meaningful way so that they can be easily found. If you have ever tried to find
something in an EU online shop and you don’t know the exact name – good luck!
The forte of the US e-commerce competition is great search and serious product
organization. This is why, in spite of the EU legislation, they outsell
European retailers cross-border in the EU by a factor of 15 (fifteen)!
Graphs and Surface
The solution to these cross-border problems is to
think of product offerings as a tree or a graph. This structure is then coupled
with the surface terms to be found in the relevant languages. The products
should be organized as a multilingual taxonomy of multiple relationships that
are learning from what people search for and are adapted accordingly.
You need to be as careful organizing your products in
your online shop as you are in the physical shop – chewing gum by the cashier
and so forth. The thing is, that in the EU, every online shop needs to be
flexible and adapt to national priorities and wishes. What you need to do is
carefully handcraft your product descriptions to make sure key words in each
language are activated through search.
This is my first blog entry on The Multilingual
Knowledge Blog. I am co-founder and Chief Strategist at Coreon GmbH. Our tag
line is ‘Knowledge meets Language’. The unleashed synergy between these two
fields is what highly motivates me. I believe that Multilingual Knowledge
Systems are the information infrastructure for today’s most challenging IT
fields: Interoperability, Globalization, and (Product) Search.
You will find more information at www.coreon.com
Fully agree with "every online shop needs to be flexible and adapt to national priorities and wishes."
ReplyDeleteBut I would like to add that "What you need to do is carefully handcraft your product descriptions to make sure key words in each language are activated through search" may not be enough. There may be cultural differences as to how the tree is organized.
While "Ayran" is regarded as a dairy product by German consumers, Turkish ones may see it as a beverage.
Similar things can be found all over the food area (vegetable or spice?), but I'm sure this is not the only rea of concern.
Thank you for your comment. Yes, this is very true and also the reason why translation is not good enough. If you try to find Ayran under beverage in the Turkish online shop - you wont find it - if it was organised according to German perception. The solution is to have multiple links - in fact Ayran can link to both Beverage and Dairy - this is one of the main reasons for using multiple parents for organizing the products. We find that a simple Taxonomy doesn't do the job but an Knowledge Map does!
ReplyDelete