Since the 1950s, Machine Translation (MT) has become an important fact in the language services industry ─ and will always be!
As technology is moving forward day by day, machine translation (MT) is also evolving in parallel. The early 1970s witnessed the rule-based machine translation (RBMT), the first commercial machine translation systems ─ which depend on linguistic rules that put words in various places so they may have different meanings based on the context.
The next development, in the 1990s, was the statistical machine translation (SMT) methods, which are based on analyzing existing human translations (bilingual text corpora) and assembling translations using overlap phrases.
To bypass SMT’s disadvantage of translating a phrase only if it is in the existing reference texts, the next development, neural machine translation (NMT), has come on the scene. NMT is an approach that uses a large artificial neural network for predicting the likelihood of a sequence of words, often in the form of whole sentences.
However, we need to admit that there’s a special relationship between Machine Translation and eCommerce. But, how and why?
The answer will be clear if we place it in the wider context of how to maximize the potential of your eCommerce Platform. Let’s dive deeper!
How Will MTPE Optimize Your eCommerce Platform?
With English, the most widely used language on the internet, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, and Arabic are also growing quickly and steadily with online users. So, as an eCommerce business, can you ever ignore that the majority of online users now prefer to buy from e-shops that publish content in their mother tongue?!
It’s a fact of the current global eCommerce business. Recent research shows that more than 76% of shoppers on the internet prefer to purchase products and services with a content in their native language. Furthermore, 40% of online consumers will never buy from sites that publish content in other languages! So what?!
So, it’s a must for every smart eCommerce business to leverage the 2 wonderful options of machine translation (MT) and machine translation post-editing if they wish to maximize the potential of their eCommerce Platform. But how? In the following 3 major steps.
1- Prepare Your Content Machine for Translation!
As a smart eCommerce company, you have to create synergy within your content machine by integrating your business’ Content Management System (CMS), Translation (CAT) Tool, and MT-Engine. With this integration in place, you will be able to connect your eCommerce platform directly with your language service provider (LSP).
Also, you need to pave the way for your language service provider to provide you with a professional MTPE service. This can be done if you appropriately implement a good Style Guide, Glossary, and Translation Memory (TM) so that you can ultimately develop linguistic parameters that will make it possible for your MTPE service provider to deliver a high-quality translation of your eCommerce content.
2- The Content Types of eCommerce Platforms
It’s highly important to make sure that all the types of content in your eCommerce platform are translated so that you don’t lose buyers who speak and understand multiple languages. The pillar content types of eCommerce mainly include User-Generated Content (UGC) and Product Descriptions.
- User-Generated Content (UGC), such as customer reviews and other feedback should be translated as rapidly as possible.
- Product Descriptions, that list a product’s unique features and benefits, should also be translated as quickly as possible.
Machine translation and machine translation post-editing (MTPE) are great tools to use in getting this translation task done properly and efficiently.
3- Leveraging Continuous Translation to Maximize Dynamic Content
The current standards of the eCommerce industry require that eCommerce content should be continuously updated and made as consistent as possible. Therefore, eCommerce businesses now apply “Continuous Translation” as a benchmark within the translation solutions they use in order to rapidly cater to the requirements of the eCommerce’s quickly changing market.
To maximize their dynamic content, eCommerce firms must optimize the use of their Translation Management System (TMS) and CAT tools. With this, the eCommerce company will ensure that the platform’s new content is impeccably extracted and the translation is inserted within very short turnaround times. The result, thus, is a guaranteed cost reduction and quicker sales.
But we still need to understand how the players in the eCommerce industry might benefit from MT and MTPE.
How Can Machine Translation and MTPE Benefit E-commerce?
We usually come across this important question: Why are machine translation and MTPE regarded as treasures for the eCommerce industry in particular? The answer, however, is simple. This is due to the e-commerce content’s sheer quantity in addition to its continuously changing nature.
Translating the eCommerce site’s content into the target audiences’ multiple languages quickly and in large volumes through Machine Translation ─ and with higher quality through MTPE ─ is becoming vital for the success of any eshop doing business in global markets.
Let’s put it outright. It’s a big challenge for human translators to manage the rapid translation of this ever-changing eCommerce content into many languages. So, why not make use of the latest machine translation technology ─ which makes it possible for e-commerce businesses to optimize the translation process from A to Z in order to maximize their global business?!
Why Contentech?
It goes without saying that if a smart eCommerce business wishes to reap the fruits of both
Machine Translation and Machine Translation Post Editing, they have to partner with a professional MTPE provider.
At Contentech, we’re proud to have finally reached the magic solution to the longstanding equation of volume, quality, and cost ─ which businesses have been trying to solve for many years!
Our MTPE solution is second to none thanks to a variety of reasons, including our rigorous quality assurance process, our highly experienced team of translators and editors, as well as our advanced technology.
Contact us now for a free quote