Thanks for Calvin Scharffs from our Marketplace partner Lingotek for sharing some industry insight.

Globalization is all about planning. One forgotten detail can mean major headaches down the road—you end up replicating content across languages, and hit a “garbage in, garbage out” situation that could take a long time to clean up. Here are five ways to prepare for smart, tidy global growth.

Set the right foundation.
Be sure to launch your globalization efforts on an adaptable content management system that is designed with extensibility in mind. Drupal is the perfect starting place, with its community-generated add-ons that accommodate the versatility crucial in international eCommerce.

Go multilingual.
Your biggest markets are most likely non-English speaking. To maximize your online presence, offer at least two language options. Find out if any of your systems aren’t equipped with multilingual capabilities, so you can address the challenge before you transition.

Accommodate many currencies.
Check to see if your currencies are converting correctly. Make sure that the currency and date displays always reflect a user’s local currency, so that they’ll have the simplest possible path to purchasing from you.  

Be agile.
Time is of the essence when it comes to penetrating potential international markets. Strategize your globalization with an eye for efficiency. Adopt the tools that will help you stay fast, including translation management, which enables companies to capture, reuse and recycle their online content—providing the best efficiency for current, consistent content for all customers, everywhere.

Localize.
When you translate content, make sure that you also localize—use the appearance and colloquialisms that your audience is familiar with. Otherwise, you risk alienating your customers with cultural faux pas, such as using a color that signifies bad luck, or translating a phrase that works in English, but means something unbecoming in your target language.

By addressing these five aspects of global-ready eCommerce, you’ll jump on the fast lane to effective globalization. 

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