The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

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By John Glenday, Reporter

November 26, 2012 | 2 min read

Marketers are being warned that they’ve lost out on a potential $30tn worth of sales over the past two years owing to a failure to properly localise their websites for different countries.

A CSA research report suggests that just one third of the $44.6tn potential of online marketing is being tapped by English-only websites, with sites in using less widespread languages such as Russian and Japanese suffering even more.

Currently just 11 languages gain access to 85% of the global marketplace with 85% of consumers far more likely to buy a product if it is presented in their native tongue, with 54% even going so far as to rank it more important than price.

Waheed Bargouthi, CEO of Dakwak, a specialist cloud based translation software firm, said: “This tells us that comfort and confidence in reading a website that has been translated into your language is a huge factor in the purchasing decision, but many businesses are failing to do this, as they see website translation and localisation as a costly exercise involving big budgets and teams of people.

“The potential for businesses to maximise sales by creating localised content, without having to hire teams of translators and developers, or even visit the country you want to sell to, is enormous. The internet has broken down borders for global trade, and removing language barriers by using online translation software can help change a business’s fortunes.”