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E-commerce sites that don't accommodate international shoppers may be throwing away half their potential sales.
"It's a huge issue," says Jakob Nielsen, co-founder of Web site usability design consultancy Nielsen Norman Group in Fremont, Calif. "Even at our own modest Web site, half of our sales are international."
Accommodation goes beyond shipping internationally, he says.
Questions such as whether a product works with the electrical connections in countries outside the U.S. or what a price is in another currency can stymie international shoppers, Nielsen says.
U.S. DVDs may not work outside the U.S., and few cell phones work in both Europe and the U.S., for example. Web site designers should address such issues with their products and not wait until shoppers check out, Nielsen advises.
Too many companies "assume the whole world works like the U.S., and it doesn't," he says.
As with most software, Web sites for multiple countries may be internationalized or localized.
An internationalized site uses basic English and international symbols and eschews metaphors that might be unfamiliar in another country. A localized site is a version of the site design adapted for a specific locale. But either way, cultural differences must be taken into account, Nielsen says.
For example, Dodgeville, Wis.-based Lands' End Inc.'s U.S. site trumpets the many colors that the company's mesh polo shirts come in. Its localized U.K. site shows conventional men's shirts and says, "Lands' End summer shirts are pukka!" The French version warns that summer will be hot (L'ete sera chaud!).
Check your server logs to see whether you have enough users from a particular country to warrant a translation, Nielsen suggests.
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