Top 50 eCommerce sites use four or more languages signaling localization growth for brands

A brand’s ability to feel “local” while experiencing global growth to customers around the world has changed because of the inception of localization technology. It means that a brand takes local context, culture, subtlety, and consumer behavior into consideration at all steps of the customer experience — including social, customer service, marketing and sales. Localization services vary depending on a brand’s priority but can be seen in everything from website copy to audio and visual assets to data refinement and analysis.

AI-powered localization platform, BLEND, recently released results from the July 2021 analysis of eCommerce localization tactics used by top-ranked brands with a global presence. The report analyzes eCommerce localization metrics used to expand global presence and maintain local relevance among the Top 50 eCommerce websites as ranked by Similar Web in July 2021. 

Of note in the report:

• 46% of the top 50 websites offer more than four language choices to their overall audience to enable a localized and native experience.
• Sixteen of the top 50 brands attract more than 20% of website traffic from external countries.
• The top five eCommerce websites ranked by share of traffic from external countries are: Aliexpress, Steams, Booking.com, Samsung, and Ikea. 

“Samsung, Shein, and Apple all offer their websites in over 30 languages worldwide, drawing over 50% of their site traffic from foreign markets,” says Yair Tal, CEO of BLEND. “We see this trend of global multilingual expansion among large brands and small sellers alike, and COVID-19 had a lot to do with it. From a pound of tomatoes to a brand-new Tesla, shoppers, regardless of age or previous shopping habits, adapted their habits to suit the new pandemic-shaped retail reality and they prefer brands that speak their language.”

By looking at top global brands, it can signal important trends businesses of all sizes should consider. The beauty of the growth in industry-specific tech, like localization, means it can democratize affordability options for businesses from small to large. Localizing the entire customer journey and all relevant elements, brands can now grow globally and provide better service that generates higher sales and better lifetime value.