Going Global with MT: E-commerce Translation Made Easy

In a world marked by digital interconnectedness, the sphere of e-commerce has emerged as a powerful and dynamic force. The convenience of online shopping has reshaped consumer behavior, and businesses have recognized the enormous potential of extending their reach to global markets. According to Statista, in 2022, around 5.7 trillion US dollars were coming from retail e-commerce sales worldwide. Based on the figures, it will continue to grow.

This growth has also increased the demand for multilingual e-commerce websites and content. Today, we will examine how machine translation (MT) broadens these businesses' outreach in the global market and can facilitate e-commerce translation.

The Need for E-commerce Translation in International Expansion 

As mentioned, the global E-commerce industry is growing as the internet transcends geographical boundaries and can broaden a business' user base as they enter any market. While international expansion holds immense potential, it has its share of challenges. The journey to cross-border success is laden with obstacles that e-commerce businesses must navigate. One is the challenge of conveying your brand's message across another language and culture to connect with international users fully. 

In international expansion, language emerges as a significant impediment to global success. It's not merely a matter of communication but a fundamental element of building trust, conveying value, and ensuring customer satisfaction. The nuances of language, dialects, and cultural references can significantly affect how a business's message is received and understood in foreign markets. It makes language an integral factor that can either facilitate or hinder the success of e-commerce businesses in the global arena. However, this can be costly, so many stick to using their native language in their local market or use English as their default language. 

Could MT Be a Solution to the Dilemma of E-commerce Translation? 

The idea of combining machine translation with the expertise of human translators in business is familiar. We wrote about that here, explaining machine translation post-editing (MTPE) and how companies can use it. What about solely relying on MT as a language solution to efficiently create multilingual content while cutting costs?

According to a survey conducted by CSA Research, after interviewing 8,709 international users, about 66% use MT engines to translate the content, and 65% prefer reading text in their native language despite its poor quality. 

DataReportal published that 1 out of 3 working-age users have utilized online translation tools every week for different languages. The same report found that Japanese users were least likely to engage in content made in another language. As few as 1 out of 7 said they use online MT tools every week. Latin American users were most likely to use them often, with 6 out of 10 stating they had used an MT tool in the past seven days as they scanned the internet.

From these figures alone, it's clear that even though e-commerce businesses don't translate their content, users are willing to go the extra mile to solve the content themselves using online MT tools.

Since your users will most likely use MT to translate the content from your e-commerce site, why not take the initiative and have it translated yourself? 

With the rise of AI, neural machine translation has become increasingly common, with about 60-90% accuracy for the translated content and continuously improving from 3-7% every year. So there's more consistency and precision in the translated content generated. For this reason, MT can be used for e-commerce website translation and other multilingual content.

Benefits and Challenges of Machine Translation in Cross-Border E-commerce

Due to the many cross-border e-commerce bringing in a lot of global opportunities, machine translation has become a transformative tool that can leverage businesses' communication, marketing, and operation depending on the language pair and domain it will be used for. In this section, we delve into the dual facets of this powerful technology: its remarkable advantages and the complex challenges it brings to language translations for e-commerce.

Benefits of Machine Translation in Cross-Border E-commerce

1. Speed and Efficiency: Machine translation's remarkable speed and efficiency are at the forefront of the benefits. MT operates at an unparalleled pace, rapidly converting text from one language to another. MT's agility ensures that e-commerce businesses swiftly update their e-commerce website translation, product descriptions, and other content in multiple languages. It keeps them competitive in a dynamic industry where time-to-market is crucial.

2. Cost-Effectiveness: A significant advantage of machine translation lies in its cost-effectiveness. MT provides a more economical alternative by automating the process and reducing reliance on human resources. It is precious for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and startups looking to expand internationally without the financial burden often associated with translation.

3. Accessibility: Machine translation extends the reach of cross-border e-commerce to a broader, global audience. Depending on the type of MT engine, it can cater to many languages, empowering businesses to engage with a more diverse customer base. This inclusivity translates into a broader market reach, enabling companies to tap into new territories, such as the Spanish market, and the vast potential beyond their home borders.

Challenges of Machine Translation in Cross-Border E-commerce

1. Linguistic Accuracy: One of the primary challenges of machine translation is linguistic accuracy. It can't be denied that machine translation errors occur because, despite its speed and efficiency, many subtle nuances, such as idiomatic expressions and context-specific word meanings, can affect its accuracy and precision.

2. Cultural Nuances: Language is not just a tool of communication but also a reflection of culture, customs, and local context. MT has been known to struggle to grasp and convey cultural nuances, as it may misinterpret idioms, miss cultural references, or misunderstand the connotations of certain words.

3. Quality Assurance: Ensuring the quality of machine-translated content can be a challenge. Without proper quality control measures, there is a risk of inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and errors. Maintaining translation quality is a critical aspect of using machine translation effectively.

Best Practices for Leveraging MT for E-commerce Website Translation

Machine translation (MT) can be a valuable tool for translating e-commerce websites, but it's essential to use it wisely. Here are some best practices:

1. Choose the Right MT Engine: Not all MT engines are created equal. Some are better suited for specific languages or types of content than others—research to find an MT engine with a good reputation for translating e-commerce content. MachineTranslation.com offers a translation tool with a Best Engine Recommendation feature that recommends the best engine based on the language pair and what your translation needs.

2. Use MT as a First Pass: MT can be a great way to get a quick and rough translation of your website. However, it's essential to have a human translator review the translation carefully before publishing it. MT can still make mistakes, especially with complex or nuanced language.

3. Be Aware of the Limitations of MT: MT is not perfect. It can struggle with things like puns, idioms, and cultural references. It's important to be aware of these limitations and have a human translator review the translation carefully for anything confusing or inaccurate.

4. Use MT to Translate Dynamic Content: MT is well-suited for translating dynamic content, such as product descriptions and customer reviews. This type of content is often updated, so translating manually can be time-consuming and expensive. MT can be a great way to keep your translations up-to-date without breaking the bank.

5. Use MT to Translate Static Content: MT can also translate static content, such as your website's Homepage and About Us Page, while having a human translator scrutinize the translation for accuracy and style.

6. Break Up Large Pieces of Text into Smaller Chunks: MT works better with shorter pieces of text. If you have a large amount of text to translate, break it into smaller chunks and translate each separately.

7. Use Simple Language: MT is likelier to make complex language mistakes. When writing your content, try to use simple language that is easy to understand.

8. Avoid Using Jargon and Technical Terms: MT may not be able to translate vocabulary and technical terms accurately. If you need to use these terms, try to provide definitions or explanations.

9. Proofread the Translation Carefully: Once you have translated your content with MT, proofread it carefully for any errors.

Following these best practices, you can use MT to translate your e-commerce website efficiently and effectively.

Conclusion

Machine translation is pivotal in cross-border e-commerce, breaking language barriers and facilitating international expansion. It offers speed, cost-effectiveness, and greater accessibility, but challenges like linguistic accuracy and cultural nuances need consideration. Despite challenges, the future of machine translation looks promising in e-commerce translation.

E-commerce businesses should embrace machine translation, recognizing its strengths and limitations. They can thrive in international markets by ensuring quality and cultural relevance through post-editing. As the e-commerce industry evolves, strategic machine translation adoption will define international success for many businesses.