Going Global
Hungry for New Markets
By Howard Schwartz
By now it's probably crossed your mind. Maybe your Web site has registered double and triple digit growth in hits every month. Maybe you're taking orders like there's no tomorrow. And maybe you're downloading so many free music tracks to visitors that your servers are straining. But you've probably realized that this growth won't go on forever unless your Web site can speak to visitors who don't speak English.
If globalization hasn't crossed your mind, it will. Today more than 50 percent of Web users are from outside the U.S.—and they have money to spend. IDC predicts that non-U.S. Internet commerce will explode from comprising 26 percent of worldwide spending to 46 percent by 2003. Shortly thereafter spending will overtake that in the U.S., meaning that if your site is available only in English, you'll be effectively ignoring more than half of the market. Of course, lots of people living outside of the U.S. speak English, but countries in which English is the native language represent only 8 percent of the world's population. Forrester found that visitors spend twice as long and are three times more likely to buy from a site with information in their native language. That has relevance for the U.S. market as well, where companies are increasingly seeking new markets.
However, there are many details to consider when you decide to make your Web site, e-business, intranet, or extranet multilingual.
More Than Translation
Creating a Web presence that addresses the needs of users from around the world is complex, but not impossible.
