Etsy has added a tool to help sellers grow international sales. While marketplaces may offer automatic (“machine”) translations, Etsy is making it easier for multilingual sellers to add their own translations to their listings.
“Translations you add yourself tend to be higher quality and sound more natural so they outperform machine translations. We suggest multilingual sellers add their own translations instead of relying on machine translation,” Etsy wrote.
The addition of human translations boosts conversions, according to the company. “We know from research that buyers perceive automated translations as less trustworthy, and our sales data shows that listings with manual translations sell more than machine translated listings.”
In addition, it shows shoppers they can get support in their native language, Etsy said.
Translation also improves placement in search: “Translating your listings yourself ensures that they can be found using the right keywords in search. By adding manual translations, you optimize your shop and listings for ideal placement in search engines on and off Etsy.”
Etsy also offered this advice:
“If you operate in a country where the local language is supported by Etsy and originally set up your shop with English as your default shop language, we strongly recommend adding your own translations for your local language to take full advantage of your local market.
“If you originally set up your shop with your local language as your default shop language, adding your own English translations can open up your business to a whole new world of global buyers.”
You can read the full announcement on the Etsy Seller Handbook.
Etsy is no longer a global site.
Many international sellers have seen their sales halved by such ill conceived policies as localization. That’s where Etsy institutes policies which encourage buyers to purchase within their own countries. The problem is that Etsy as a marketplace is little known in many countries outside the USA. So sellers who hitherto had healthy US sales have seen them slashed.
There are also sneaky measures instituted in search whereby the selection defaults to the buyer’s own country when they select for sellers who can ship in 1-3 days. This again is localization by the back door. Many international sellers offer expedited courier services which can deliver to the USA is 2/3 days and worldwide in 4/5 days.
As usual when pressed for clarity, Etsy cites corporate gobbledegook and claims that “buyers have told us” XXX. Which buyers? When? I am also a buyer but I was never asked about localization.