Let’s say you have a retail website selling outdoor gear. There will be quite a few different pages, most of which are related to particular products or product categories- waterproof jackets, sleeping bags, hiking boots, and so on- and a few that are more technical. All online retailers need to display their terms and conditions of service and ordering information. Those are usually the most difficult to understand even for native English speakers.
However, they are necessary and the ordering information, in particular, will probably be one of the most widely-read pages on the site. A high percentage of all customers will read it carefully and that goes double for those ordering from overseas. They’ll want to know how much postage will cost and how long their purchase will take to arrive, whether it can be sent to a business address, and if the courier will ask for a signature on delivery or not.
Website translation is particularly important for the delivery of information pages.
Some companies elect to ask document translation services to create half a dozen ordering information pages in the languages of the most likely overseas customers. Often these people will have a good idea of the product they want and be able to find it on the site without a problem. They don’t need full website translation, just easy-to-understand ordering information in their own language.
