|
Local Design, International Sales:
Tips For Using Your CafePress Shop To Sell Globally By SongLi |
|
-
|
| Not A Small World After All. Face it, the Internet is global. Through my partnership with Han Translation, I have photography assignments in Japan and China. But through CafePress, my photo designed products are reaching an expanding international market. CafePress has not developed any non-English services yet, but don't wait. Stay ahead of the competition and set the standard with your shop. English Overwhelmed. Recent studies have shown that Non-English speakers will soon become the majority of users on the internet. Don't Panic. To be sure, English will remain a dominant language. You will not need Japanese to communicate with someone in Kansas. But is your CafePress shop ready to respond to the new international opportunities that the internet offers? Thinking Big. It is easy to assume that anyone who visits your shop will speak your native language, or even be a fellow citizen. The slang of pop culture can quickly become dated or be out of context with your consumers anyway. (Who was that "Pedro" guy?) So using good English is a well proven advertising rule for lasting campaigns. Hence the expression, "It's not what you say, but how you say it." Winston Churchill once said that America and Great Britain were two peoples separated by a common language. So it is understandable that even English, with its different dialects, accents, and word choices, can be confusing. We are all familiar with the classic advertising blunders, where a word in one language has had a vastly different meaning in another. Like the car "Nova" which in Spanish translated to say "No Go." In many Asian countries, English is widely used but has adapted to reflect the grammar style of the local languages. Many of these expressions are out of context for native speakers (hence the terms "Chinglish" in China and "Engrish" in Japan). Keep It Simple. Some shop owners try to bypass the language barrier as a matter of good design. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words. Using an icon is fast for understanding and navigation. Plus, it leaves little room for error or misunderstanding. If you see an icon of a dress, chances are it is a female related item. The downside to images is the added download time. It is a universal problem even on non-commercial web sites. If your consumers pay for their dial-up time, then time is money to them. And who wants to wait for huge files to download one after the other? So be creative, but follow the general rules of good web design to make your CafePress shop more internationally friendly. No Simple Matter. Cultural differences are a bid deal. So big, in fact, that most global companies create separate web sites targeted for different cultures. Han Translation (http://www.hantranslation.com) uses a unified web site design, but gives customers the option of selecting pages in English, Japanese, or Mandarin Chinese. Remember, how people use the web is also different. In America, consumers want to find information or buy things so web sites are clean, simple, and organized in a logical way to help navigation. In China where information is restricted and eCommerce is undeveloped, consumers use the internet for entertainment. Web sites are often overwhelmed with flash animations, redundancy of content to make the volume appear more vast, and directs users in a maze of busy "dancing bologna" with no real substance. Color Me Happy. We have all seen web sites that make our eyes hurt. Who would trust a product design from a store that has a web page which looks like an explosion of crayons? Thankfully, CafePress has template designs to help shop owners who prefer spending their time on making products instead of programming html. But remember that colors have different meanings from country to country. Chinese people in China, for example, dislike the color black. Using a black picture frame is the tradition used for displaying a death photo (a portrait of a deceased family member). Yet, most of the Chinese women I know in New York wear a complete wardrobe of black clothes, following the chic fashion trend. Color is always a consideration, in any aspect of business. What color will appeal to your market and alienate another? It always makes good business sense to know who you are selling to. Asian countries consider white to be the color of death, but in America it reflect an honest and pure nature. Being culturally sensitive may not help your business, but it will not hurt it either. Don't Rush It. If you sell exclusively to an American consumer base, perhaps you see no need or value in being language friendly. But remember that English is not the only language spoken in America either. It is not hard or expensive to make your site a bit easier to navigate. Certainly, buyers must have some English skills to place an order. But how many online forms do you fill out without reading completely because their format is standard and simply written? Perhaps CafePress will offer multiple language features in the future, or provide .css scripts for shop owners who wish to take advantage of multiple languages. As more shops are set up by owners outside America, it is likely that CafePress will offer this service soon. The company has shown it forward thinking and quick response to market needs. If Nothing Else. If your shop looks small, people will think it is small. I cannot speak French, but would still be impressed if I went to a CafePress shop that offered the language as a viewing option (or at least used French in graphic banners). Perception is reality, as they say, and being internationally aware can only help build your brand identification and loyalty with your consumers - nationally and internationally. |
| - |
| 2005 © SongLi Photo |
