Multilingual online shops

What makes a shop harder than a brochure site

A shop has more text in more places, and much of it only appears after an action: a basket message, a stock warning, a payment error, an order confirmation email, an invoice. Every one of those has to exist in every language, and a missing one appears at exactly the moment a customer is deciding whether to trust you.

Shops also carry rules a brochure site does not. Price display for Swiss consumers has its own requirements, and online sellers have duties about identity, order steps and confirmations. Those apply in every language version.

The Swiss rules we design around

The Confederation's SME portal summarises the duties of online sellers under the Federal Act against Unfair Competition: indicate clearly and in full their identity and contact address, including email; indicate the technical steps that lead to a contract; provide tools to detect and correct entry errors before an order is sent; and confirm the customer's order by email without delay ¹. On prices, the amount the consumer actually pays must be shown in Swiss francs, with VAT included, and delivery costs in principle included or shown clearly beside the product price ².

We build the order flow so that each of these steps exists and reads correctly in every language. We are not lawyers: we design and build to these published summaries, and questions about your specific obligations belong with your legal adviser.

What the service covers

Product data per language

Names, descriptions, attributes, categories and filters in each language, with a structure in the shop system that keeps them linked. Translated product addresses where the platform supports them, with hreflang across versions ³.

Prices and formats

CHF prices formatted for each locale from data, not typed by hand, with VAT included for consumers. If you sell to businesses too, the display makes clear which prices include VAT.

Checkout and account pages

Every step, field label, hint and error message translated. Address forms that accept the formats of the countries you deliver to. A language choice that survives the move from shop to checkout, so a customer who browsed in French pays in French.

Emails and documents

Order confirmations, shipping notices, password resets and invoices in the customer's language, with the language stored on the order so later emails match.

Search and filters

On-site search that returns results in the language being read, and filters whose labels and values are translated consistently.

Testing

Test orders in every language from browse to confirmation email, on phones and desktops, including payment errors and address corrections.

Platforms

We work with shop systems that support multiple languages, such as WooCommerce on WordPress with a multilingual plugin, and with hosted shop platforms where their language features suit your needs. The choice depends on your catalogue size, your payment providers and who will run the shop day to day; we write down the reasons for the recommendation.

Translation

As with every Lingravelix service, translation itself is done by translators you appoint. For shops we prepare structured exports of product data, interface strings and email templates, and we place and check the returned text. Product data can be large, so the project planner is useful for estimating word volumes before you ask translators for quotes.

Adding languages to an existing shop

If your shop already runs in one language, adding another is a substantial change: product data, templates, emails and the checkout are all affected. We start with a review of what the platform and its extensions support, then quote for the work. A staging copy is used for all changes and tests before anything reaches live customers.

Price

From CHF 22,000 for a new shop in two or three languages with a standard catalogue, plus VAT where applicable. Adding a language to an existing shop, large catalogues and custom integrations are quoted after a review. See pricing for every starting point.