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US retail companies need to localize their websites such as localized payments options, merchandising and customer service options for key international markets like the UK, Australia, Mexico and Japan, according to a recent research ‘Localization Report 2016’ by Practicology, eShopWorld and TranslateMedia.
The research included 51 US retailers and 25 sites of international markets like the UK, Australia, Japan and Mexico. It assessed their localization efforts in areas like use of language across the site, merchandising and offers, mobile optimization, search engine optimization, social media, customer services, shipping and returns, pricing and payment.
The study pointed out that US retailers were particularly strong at providing customer service support in local business hours, localizing pricing, and localizing their foreign language sites in Mexico and Japan. Japanese websites of US retailers have fully localized their product details (90 per cent), 80 per cent have country-specific homepage merchandising, 64 per cent have fully localized site navigation, 76 per cent have country-specific offers and promotions, 88 per cent have a Japanese customer service phone number and 96 per cent offer returns by post to a Japanese address.
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However, the same priority was not as evident in UK and Australia. 52 per cent of US retailers have not localized their sites completely for their UK websites. Close to 80 per cent of retailers have fully localized their UK and Australian homepage languages, with Mexican websites coming out on top with 96 per cent. About 68 per cent have completely localized their site navigation into the UK and Australian English. However, only half have extended this fully to include product and description and other content on their UK sites.
“We have seen US retailers invest in localizing their international websites in the last few years as a way of driving cross-border online sales growth. However, we feel that there are clear opportunities to go further, and provide a truly localized customer experience for their international customers in key markets,” said Nicola Huet, Head of Internationalization, Practicology.