The key role of language and customer experience in global growth

Discover how AI-driven solutions can help you break language barriers, boost customer experience, and increase conversion rates. Read on to explore key insights from our latest ebook, Maximizing Global Ecommerce Sales: How Language Creates a Strategic Advantage, and learn best practices for successful global expansion.

With expansion into new international markets key for many online retailers’ growth strategies, translation and localization becomes a key success factor. 

Translation may previously have been seen as an obstacle to expansion, one that required time and resources, slowing down the rate of growth. 

With the development of AI-driven automated translation and localization, those obstacles of cost and time have been removed, and translation becomes a powerful growth strategy. 

This is a theme we explore in our latest ebook, ‘Maximizing Global Ecommerce Sales: How language creates a strategic advantage‘, which looks at best practices for translation and localization. 

Here, we’ve gathered some of the key themes from the report:

Language is essential to maximize sales in new markets 

While 67% of shoppers have made an online purchase from a website based in a foreign country, language is a huge potential barrier. 

While determined customers may be able to use their language skills to buy from cross-border sites, the experience isn’t ideal, and many elements of the site may be hard to understand. 

Just 28% would make a purchase from a website in a foreign language, which means retailers are missing out on new markets if they fail to address translation and localization. 

Translation also enables retailers to market more effectively in overseas markets, providing email and social content in the customer’s native language, and personalizing content more effectively. 

A promotional ebook cover image for "Maximizing Global Ecommerce Sales: How Language Creates a Strategic Advantage" by Phrase. The image features a person holding a credit card while shopping on an ecommerce website on a laptop. The website displays a "Shop Now" banner promoting a discount, and the image highlights the role of language in ecommerce success with colorful icons representing different languages. The Phrase logo is positioned at the bottom left, accompanied by a modern gradient background.

Machine translation speeds up time to market

For companies looking to expand into new markets, speed and efficiency is key for maximizing value. 

With machine translation and its ability to process large volumes of text rapidly, retailers can speed up expansion into new markets. Once established, this rapid turnaround is crucial for maintaining up-to-date product listings, descriptions, and customer communications.

The benefits of machine translation can be measured in a number of ways, including increased sales from faster site launches, reduction in time spent on projects by developers, designers, and localization teams, as well as better sales performance driven by accurate translation. 

Phrase client Deliveroo was able to benefit from machine translation when it expanded into several new markets.

With more than 170,000 delivery partners, the right technology and processes were needed to handle large numbers of translation requests. 

Using the Phrase Localization Platform, Deliveroo was able to achieve a three to four day reduction in project timelines, while providing a more tailored and personalized user experience for customers across different regions. 

As Cristina Marín, Senior Localization Manager at Deliveroo explains: 

By using the Phrase Localization Platform, localization managers are saving at least 35-40% of the time typically spent on project management

– Cristina Marín, Senior Localization Manager, Deliveroo

 

Translation drives improved customer experiences

Customer experience is a key factor in a customer’s decision to shop with a certain brand. It’s about the ease with which they can browse and navigate a website, understand key product information, read user reviews and complete purchases without hassle. 

It’s also about the post-purchase experience, including engagement with customer support, shipping, and the marketing content they receive from retailers. 

Translation has a huge part to play in the customer experience as retailers expand. By adapting the customer experience, and ensuring that product pages and other site copy works equally well for new markets. 

By providing a fully localized experience from initial engagement through to post-purchase support, customers can enjoy a seamless journey without encountering language barriers or cultural misunderstandings. 

Increased conversions 

Localized product descriptions, reviews, and calls-to-action are more persuasive and can drive higher conversion rates. According to a study by Shopify, translation increases retailers’ conversion rates by 13% on average. 

Accurate translation means that customers make more informed purchases, and also reduces the risk of misunderstandings and errors in areas such as product descriptions, shipping and returns policies, and FAQs. This also reduces the likelihood of returns and complaints. 

When we look at key areas such as checkout, translation and localization can directly impact sales. Accurate translation ensures that customers see clear price and shipping information,, and reassures customers about payment security. 

It’s also about the detail. For example, while many retailers use ‘add to basket’ on buttons, it doesn’t always translate well. In German, this would be ‘Zum Warenkorb hinzufügen’, which would be too long, so text needs to be adapted to design needs. 

Addressing these translation issues is essential for creating a seamless and user-friendly checkout experience for international shoppers, and can have a direct impact on conversion rates. 

Translation and localization go hand-in-hand

It isn’t enough just to translate content into a new language, it needs to be localized to be truly effective. 

Translation is changing the language, but localization is about making content culturally relevant, so that it accounts for local expectations, practices, and behavior. It ensures that content, products and presentation is more relevant to a local audience. 

By planning carefully, and understanding and accounting for cultural differences, retailers can avoid the kinds of translation mistakes made by retailers like IKEA and Amazon

To read more about the role of translation in ecommerce and how it can drive customer experiences, as well as best practices for implementing translation and localization, download our new ebook:

Maximizing Global Ecommerce Sales: How language creates a strategic advantage

Keep exploring

Blog post

Dr. Meeta Yadav Vouk: Trusted AI: The only currency that scales globally

AI is shifting from hype to high-stakes reality. Dr. Meeta Yadav Vouk explains why trust, governance, and local adaptability are now the foundation of enterprise AI. Learn how to move beyond prototypes to resilient, explainable systems that scale globally.

The hidden cost of expansion why global manufacturers struggle to get it right

Blog post

The hidden cost of expansion: why global manufacturers struggle to get it right

For manufacturers, making sure their content matches their audience isn’t a finishing touch — it’s the infrastructure that ensures global ambition translates into sustainable success.

In this episode of In Other Words, host Jason Hemingway speaks with political scientist and author Dr. Brian Klaas and Phrase CEO Georg Ell about how chaos, randomness, and influence shape our lives and our work. Drawing on stories from his book Fluke, Brian reveals how tiny, overlooked decisions shape history, why leaders must embrace resilience over control, and how businesses can build cultures of experimentation to thrive in uncertain times.

Blog post

Brian Klaas: Embracing chaos: why leaders must rethink control, resilience, and trust

Jason Hemingway speaks with political scientist and author Dr. Brian Klaas and Phrase CEO Georg Ell about how chaos, randomness, and influence shape our lives and our work.

Business professionals discussing AI-powered translation solutions, with a digital data background symbolizing global connectivity and technology.

Blog post

Beyond words: The AI breakthroughs powering global connection

AI is streamlining and disrupting any number of industries. But for brands that want to compete globally, its impact on communication is nothing short of revolutionary.

Group of professionals working together

Blog post

Stop measuring accuracy. Start measuring impact.

Generative AI has changed the economics of content. Businesses can now produce material at unprecedented scale and speed. For leaders under pressure to expand globally and accelerate growth, this looks like a breakthrough. The ability to create multilingual campaigns, product support, or entire websites in a fraction of the time is transformative.