Nearly Half of Top eCommerce Sites Are Multilingual

Is your eCommerce website speaking your language?

The more time goes on, the more likely it will be the answer is yes.

As PYMNTS noted in the latest installment of the Cross-Border Retail Payments Tracker, nearly half of the top 50 eCommerce sites now offer four or more languages.

This is happening as these businesses recognize the potential of international commerce and are making changes to broaden their reach.

A recent study of these sites found that 46% of them greeted customers in four or more languages, allowing for localized and native experiences for visitors across multiple countries and regions.

Sixteen of these sites drew in more than one-fifth of their total traffic from cross-border visitors, with AliExpress, Steam, Booking.com, Samsung and Ikea making up the top five eCommerce sites by international traffic.

And some of the eCommerce world’s power players — businesses that include Apple, Samsung and Shein — took in more than 50% of their traffic from foreign countries.

The study postulated that the pandemic was a major factor in the rise of multilingual shopping, as online consumers had more time to explore retailers from outside their countries, and those retailers made efforts to make these shoppers feel more at home.

Cross-Border Commerce Booms in China

Also in this months’ tracker: Cross-border commerce in China rose by more than 46% in the first quarter of last year. China has been at the forefront of a international commerce renaissance in the Asia-Pacific region, with some projections showing that more than half of retail sales in China will occur online by the end of the year.

A lot of this growth is being fueled by the pandemic, which has moved more consumers online. Nearly three-quarters of China’s population is now online, largely via mobile devices. That comes out to 989 million people, or more than three times the population of the U.S.

If you’d like to learn more, download your copy of the Cross-Border Retail Payments Tracker, a collaboration between PYMNTS and Citcon.