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What is E-commerce localization?

E-commerce Localization is the mechanism of assimilating online shopping experiences. It predominantly focuses on E-commerce websites and shopping apps to customer support and marketing campaigns.

E-commerce Localization engulfs:

Content Localization
UI Localization
UX Localization
Customer-service Localization
Marketing Localization

In simple words, E-commerce Localization is what guarantees that you can do business in multiple markets without brimming over into cultural barriers. As a matter of fact, when your target market can understand and engage with your E-commerce platform, they’re more likely to make a purchase. Moreover, they will come back for more and also beat the drum for your products/services.

Hence, a company that doesn’t take E-commerce Localization seriously is likely to confront issues such as:

A high number of customer service issues
Abandonment of Shopping cart
Low Conversion Rates
Poor Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)
Decreased Website Traffic

For instance, the biggest players in E-commerce have long perceived the importance of the E-commerce Localization strategy. Amazon, for example, has invested grindingly in a Rural India strategy, subsequently.

Benefits of E-commerce Localization

Lately, localization isn’t just an accessory but it has turned out to be a necessity for all those e-commerce businesses looking to expand universally. However, if you’re still confused about investing time and money into website localization, here are some benefits you should consider:

Local Market Penetration

In every target market, there’s always a large population that relentlessly chooses to procure from local sellers. Why is it so? Local sellers have an edge over others as they easily understand the buying preferences of the locals. In addition, their brand messaging also appeals to them.

While localization will facilitate you win half the battle, you must also necessarily capitalize on all sorts of cultural peculiarities to stay tuned.

Build Trust

In a survey stretching across ten countries, including Brazil, China, France, and Germany, there was a shocking finding. It was found that 30% of customers either never buy anything on English-only websites. They also avoid surfing such sites altogether.

By all means, translating your e-commerce site or retail translation (in different languages) can help you garner people’s attention. On the contrary, localizing it will create ‘repeat’ customers by and large.

Diminish Customer Service Issues

Miscommunication occupies a major role in terms of customer service or support issues. The customer might forfeit some information included in the product description. In addition, he/she might find some discrepancies in the information and visuals. E-commerce Localization services reduce the occurrence of these issues.

When various elements of an e-commerce website are culturally relevant, then your customers won’t go off the rails in translation.

Global Shopping

The E-commerce landscape is more complex and competitive than ever before. Customers today strive for a seamless, personalized, and multichannel E-commerce experience—no matter where they exist.

Furthermore, there’s the ultimatum of keeping your brand messaging stable across multiple markets while achieving local requirements. Consistency deals with an inherent degree of trustworthiness. In addition, it also fosters brand loyalty and conveys reliability. All these will drive the sales up. In addition, they will also be fulfilling local consumers’ demands. Needless to say, they help you stay ahead of the rat race.

Customers’ preferences

Each locale has its own E-commerce landscape and consumer needs. Therefore, it’s pivotal to be well-grounded in the nuances of each market particularly. Meanwhile, you can tailor your E-commerce experiences accordingly.

Audit your UX

UX Localization is a phenomenal element in dishing out outstanding e-commerce experiences. As a matter of fact, regional norms, expectations, thought processes, and language is all of utmost importance. They affect the way how your customers perceive your brand, products, and marketing. Hence, it’s imperative to localize your E-commerce UX accordingly.

Locally Relevant Information

E-commerce shoppers always envisage stumbling upon locally relevant product information, e.g., product specifications, reviews, availability, and more.

Multi-lingual Customer Service

The level of support E-commerce customers receive will cast a spell on their entire E-commerce journey. Being able to speak/converse with a real person in their preferred language gives confidence to E-commerce shoppers. In addition, it also boosts brand loyalty and slashes the likelihood of abandoned carts or negative reviews.

Complementing your multi-lingual support with chatbots and other AI-powered E-commerce support tools can elevate things to the next level.

Marketing Content

Your marketing deal and website copy should ideally be localized. This is predominantly to align with the cultural, linguistic, and technological expectations of your target markets.

Post-purchase Customer Engagement

After delivering a successful E-commerce experience, ensure that you continue engaging with customers across multifarious channels.

Doing this in the local language and guaranteeing that you’re using culturally appropriate tones will portray that you truly care about the customer’s experience.

Multi-lingual Sentiment Analysis

With multi-lingual sentiment analysis tools, you can track E-commerce metrics across local markets in real-time. Not only that, you can make timely adjustments to jack up E-commerce sales all over the map.

Adapt Your Sales Channels

E-commerce sales channels may vary greatly across markets. For instance, in Argentina, customers are habituated to purchasing from businesses via WhatsApp and Facebook marketplace.

Complementing your E-commerce platform in this manner can facilitate you to engage and convert E-commerce customers in this market more effectively. Furthermore, with cross-border E-commerce localization, the same logic applies to preferred E-commerce sales channels in other markets as well, undoubtedly.

Best Practices:

When it comes to E-commerce Localization, there are a few best practices that can help you succeed in your business expansion.

Some of the top-notch tips include:

Conducting Market Research
Content Prioritization
Investment in multi-lingual SEO
Shopping Cart Localization
Compliance with Local Regulations
Usage of Representative Photos/Pictures
Social Media Localization

Summing Up:

You can build a stronger presence in international markets by fashioning a localized customer experience in your audience’s native language. Retail Document Translation services pave the way to reach your localization goals. You can also enhance your approach to reaching new markets with IG’s Localization Services.

Category Management is a function in retail and e-commerce businesses wherein related products are grouped together under distinct categories. This is done in order to manage their performance in an efficient way by all means.

As a matter of fact, the e-commerce industry is enormous. Still, it functions in a smooth way. You might be wondering how it is possible in this competitive world. There is a secret recipe behind it, and it is ‘e-commerce category management. There is a specific group of experts who predominantly deal with matters of concern in various categories. These e-commerce category managers are the guardian angels of your business. They are in charge of everything- right from the pricing to space allocation, and much more. The list is endless.

Moreover, when a retail or an e-commerce business reaches a level, where there are thousands of SKUs across many different product departments, there will be a change in the scenario. The category Manager should assign tasks for his team members, and he will be solely responsible for the ROI, subsequently.

Category Management is often doled out by big retailers, such as grocery stores, home improvement stores, and major e-commerce players like Amazon, in particular.

Category Management predominantly stands for the organization of product categories, which provides solutions for everything in our modern world. Just recall your last trip to the Super Market: how long did it take for you to find the PANEER? You very well know that it belongs to the category of dairy products. Hence, it is located on the shelf next to the milk.

Just Imagine if the Paneer was classified, for example, as a dessert; how long would it take for you to find it? It will be really time-consuming, isn’t it?

Category Management regulates the organization of retail space, both offline and online! It is the categories you need to shape up when molding online store browsing and developing your website design.

In addition, Category Management involves working with procurement. For instance, knowing what is included in every category of your products and what KPIs it is supposed to meet allows you to choose only the best suppliers. Apart from that, you can also negotiate the most favorable collaboration terms in a professional way.

One of the shocking revelations is that owing to poor category management, an online business can lose up to 30% of its customers. Hence, a professional category manager is worth their weight in gold, undoubtedly. So, what are their duties/responsibilities? How do they contribute and bring maximum results to your business? Let’s take a look.

How to Become a Category Manager?

A Category Manager is visualized as an independent business unit manager. Hence, in order to become a category manager, you should possess good business acumen and managerial skills. You will also be expected to have an extensive experience with or product knowledge of the category you will be managing.

Vital Skills Required :

Relationship Management
Communication Skills
Business Acumen
Analytical Skills
Presentation Skills
Excel Knowledge
Category Knowledge

Category Manager’s Role in e-commerce?

The phenomenal responsibilities of a Category Manager in the e-commerce arena include:

Data Analysis to determine the market trends and consumer requirements
Strategy Development for category management
Developing tactics for promoting specific product items
Communication with suppliers
Building long-term relationships
Concluding favorable terms of cooperation with an excellent price-quality ratio;
Order Placement
Procurement Dealing
Placement of product categories
Determination of the most competitive as well as the profitable prices for product categories
Demand Forecasting
Budgeting and cost optimization
Stock Replenishment

Benefits of Category Management:

The preeminent goal of the category management function is to make sure that each category’s performance is maximized to its fullest potential. This can be achieved by implementing different strategies and tactics. It includes supplier management, visual displays, and sales performance management.

In general, each category is treated as a stand-alone business unit and extra care is provided to the different product SKUs under that category. This determines that the products don’t get neglected, and inventory return is also maximized as much as possible.

Furthermore, each category will have it’s own Open to Buy, and managers will render extraneous insights into the sales forecast of the category’s products.

Another sovereign benefit of category management is a consolidation and achieving savings through economies of scale.

The reason behind this is, the purchasing for all the stores of the same retailer will be centralized through the category manager. Hence, instead of buying for one or two stores, the manager will be procuring for a chain of 50 or 100 stores and will be negotiating for better product prices. Ultimately, an enormous bargaining power will be transferred to the retailers. This will pave way for further negotiation in addition to product cost savings.

Vital strategies:

Traffic Building
Transaction Building
Turf Defending
Profit Generation
Excitement Generation
Image Building

Category Management Tools

Open to Buy Plan: One of the most important Category Management tools to plan and manage inventory is this OTB. Open to Buy (OTB) is a planning tool that gives an overview of the inventory levels in the category. Further, OTB also gives us an idea of the requirement of the inventory in order to deliver future sales goals.

Google Trends: Another tool that is utilized by marketers and that we have found to be of utmost use in category management is Google Trends. This tool aids the category manager or buyer in spying out specific trends inside their respective category.

Category Management Considerations:

The primary goal of category management in the first place is to devote more attention and resources to each category in the business. However, since category management is a function of a bigger business, it is very imperative for the top-level management to ensure that the different product categories do not cross swords with each other or endanger each other’s plans.

In the end, all the categories have to assure- that they communicate the same message of the business to the end consumer and also render their due in brand image building. This is especially important when it comes to the implementation of different pricing and promotional strategies.

In a nutshell, we can say that the importance of Category Management is growing by leaps and bounds. For the enhancement of business, it is vital to follow a proper category management strategy. You can also reach us at www.infognanasolutions.com for further clarification.

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E-Commerce Localization & Its Magnitude in the Current Businesses