Translate Content Accurately So Users Can Find Products
When it comes to a global eCommerce multi-store and multivendor marketplace platform, one of the most critical things is making sure the vendors can properly translate their content. Product pages and attributes need the right currency, language, and imagery that matches each region's expectations. Otherwise, users won't be able to find what they're looking for.
Having robust vendor management and platform governance is crucial to a global offering. This includes handling multilingual and multicurrency aspects as well as logistical aspects with the products and categories. This is how users will find things, and if this doesn't work well, nothing else really matters beyond that point because no one will be able to find anything to buy it.
Specifically, you need to make sure the translation capability for the site is really strong. To do this, you can make a plan with your internal team, enable vendors to provide their own translations and relevant pricing in different currencies, or do it dynamically using an API to provide reasonable translations. Though keep in mind that if the translation is done through an API or online translation service, most of the time it won't be as high quality as the site visitor would probably prefer. It's usually better if done by a human being. Then the question becomes how will will your team allocate or get the resources to do this?
There are some really powerful capabilities for translation with third party resources, and then if the site has the ability to interact with translators who use standard protocols for pushing and pulling their translations, this can logistically reduce the overhead for the translation teams to be able to download the content, complete their translations, and then upload the content. Having version control for the content is also really key, so you definitely want to incorporate that into your system and process.
Multicurrency Conversion Is Key to Global Expansion
It's necessary for a global eCommerce platform to have multicurrency not just for vendors within their own regions and subdomains, but also across different regions and countries. Some vendors might sell items in particular countries where the currency might differ for each purchaser. Some items may need to be shipped across country borders, so you need to be able to convert the buyer’s currency into the vendor’s and vice versa. It’s important to be cognizant of all this, so you can track transactions in the required currency, do any conversions necessary, and be able to properly represent from an accounting perspective what those conversions were, and persist those and then be able to deal with all the accounting and logistics around getting the funds to a particular vendor.
A lot of payment providers and payment gateways don't transact with all of the different currencies, which can be a logistical challenge. It's important to work with the right providers and offer the right gateways for where you're selling so you have the correct currencies. When dealing with high-demand vendors who add a lot of value to your marketplace, you need an infrastructure that can handle the nuances of where they're located, what kind of currency and language their data is in, etc.