Localisation

What localisation means

Localisation adapts an offer to a market. It goes beyond translation: a translated page can be linguistically flawless and still unsuitable for the market, because prices look unusual, payment methods are missing or formats feel foreign. The difference is the yardstick: translation asks whether the text is understood, localisation asks whether the offer is accepted.

Which areas belong to it

• Language: not only words but also forms of address and politeness. The informal address is common in German and unsuitable in some markets.
• Prices: round amounts instead of converted figures, and the usual currency display with the symbol in the right place.
• Payment methods: what a market is used to. When the familiar method is missing, the purchase rate falls even with a correct translation.
• Dimensions and formats: sizes in inches or centimetres, date formats, phone numbers and address order.
• Shipping and delivery time: realistic statements for this market, not the values of the home market.
• Law: mandatory disclosures, withdrawal rules and labelling that apply in this market.
• Images: motifs that are everyday in one market and awkward in another.

What is forgotten most often

The first point is metadata. Titles, descriptions and structured data are often left untranslated, which makes the page invisible in the target market although the content exists. The second point is forms: field labels, error messages and confirmation emails frequently come from the source system and are untranslated.

The third point is snippets. Text fragments coming from the system, such as basket, shipping costs and account, appear independently of the content. When they are missing, the page stays German at the most important points. The fourth point is customer service: an enquiry in the target market arrives in another language and at other times, and anyone not serving it loses the customers after the first order.

In which order to proceed

The sensible order runs from the visible to the hidden. First the home page, the categories and the product pages, because that is where the first impression forms. Then basket, checkout and confirmation emails, because that is where the purchase completes. Then legal texts and service, because that is where questions arise. Last metadata and structured data, because they are not visible and therefore regularly forgotten.

A second principle is review by native speakers. A text can be grammatically correct and still unsuitable, and only someone who knows the market spots that. This review is the part that cannot be automated and therefore the most important one. Basics on the preconditions are covered under internationalisation.

Frequent questions

• Is machine translation enough? For factual details yes, for anything with effect no.
• What does localisation cost? Mostly review time, not translation time.
• What is the most common mistake? Converting prices instead of setting them.