Multilingual Ecommerce sites

and .eu domain names

[chodges84]

Hi,

I currently run a site and just ship to the UK channel Islands and Republic of Ireland. I am looking at expanding into selling abroad. The obvious place is Europe (mainly France, Germany, Italy and Spain).

Obviously the biggest problem is the language barrier. Does anyone else run a multilingual website, if so what is the best way to do it? The best way, I thought would be to have a seperate website for each country, widgets.fr, widgets.de etc, but these countries have specific rules on domain's. I must live in frnce to have a .fr domain name for example.

The current idea is to have a 'Euro' Site with different languages on, which is all well and good but how do you handle the different languages? There are probably 2 options. Just have one site and on each product page list the product descriptions in different languages, or have a subdomain for each seperate country, such as francais.widgets.com? I've seen a few sites with the different flags in the top right corner and clicking on one of these takes you to that language's site, which i thought is a good idea. Is that universally recognised?

The last thing is the domain name itself. I have a few .co.uk's, normal ones, and hypanated etc, but the .coms are gone, and just sitting dormant for a us company at the moment who i can't get hold of. There are .eu.com's which are available and would make sense since its a euro site. About a year ago i also signed up to pre register my .eu domains with lycos. Has anyone head anymore about these, and when they are expected to launch?

Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks.

Craig.

[inkamaria]

Hi, it wd be a good investment to get your original site localized = translated in those European languages you like to use (hint: use a professional translator for this!). The use of language flags is quite common in Europe.

[jetxtrem]

Hey chodges84,
<snip>

i think just france have a specific issue about the dot FR,
you must have your business or adress oversea , but none in be or de,not really sure.

you can run like a oscommerce website and have different domaine name with some redirection on the specific language,

depend how many item you sale/week, you get the same database for all,

it's less work for the backup, specially if you have a problem

For the payment system, if somebody have a great merchant account, let me know,
PAYPAL screw me pretty bad, after years of transaction without any problem and + $200000k

they just freeze my account, those guys are crazy, they kill us

since i just take the time to read all there policy, it's scary, no more paypal for me...

i cannot work since a week and need i hurry a top merchant account, i m losing too much money every day

[edited by: lorax at 12:23 pm (utc) on Aug. 8, 2005]
[edit reason] removed call to action [/edit]

[lusagalo]

Hello,

I agree with the prior comment, you should have a translation and that could be enough.

I have done quite a few "localizations" into Spanish and I would suggest progressively translating parts of your site increasing efforts as you get return of investment if you don't have much resources and prefer a variable cost.

Then you should also go for a "localized" keywords set to compete in natural and paid search and try some niche marketing in communities and finding good affiliates.

It very much depends on the volume of your business and the investment you are ready to afford.

Good Luck,

Luis
I can help you with it!

[Miklo]

Regarding the merchant account: Since you are located in Europe, MultiCards, Ogone or Chronopay can probably help you out.
I believe MultiCards can even set you up directly with an acquiring bank. (Probably the others can do that as well, I am not sure.)

[etechsupport]

multicards can be good option.

[chodges84]

Aren't Mulicards quite expensive? I use Worldpay currently, and they accept euros, so I may just have a talk with them.

Anyway, Thanks for all the help. I'm still deciding whether to just add localised versions on my current .co.uk domain name, or go for a .eu name anyway. Do you think the .co.uk would put potential visitors off from Abroad?

I would like to have six variations on the site (English with GBP, English with Euros (for Ireland), french, spanish, german and italian with Euros). Obviiously site number 1 is up and running already. Its a shame the .com's aren't available.

Anyway at the moment its just an option. I'm always looking to expand and thought this would be the next logical step.

[Miklo]

Depends on how you look at it. They are currently focusing on European businesses. Their lowest rate is 5.9% (officially) and the set up fee for that is USD 775. So compared to a third party processor like 2CheckOut, that's a lot.

Anyway, the set up fee also includes an application for a direct merchant account with your own billing name and if you have a good and steady sales volume, I am pretty sure they can do something about the rate as well.

I know because the CEO is a business partner of mine and I have used their services for a while.

Off course, feel free to check out Ogone and Chronopay as well. As far as I know, they have not been in business as long as MultiCards, so I am not sure how good they are.