Product reviews are ubiquitous in online shopping today, and their power over consumers is undeniable. Over 60% of shoppers rely on reviews for unfamiliar products, and 27% turn to reviews before nearly every type of purchase. The strength of reviews lies in their ability to communicate the experiences of other buyers that highlight the product’s quality. Because of this, a review is only valuable to your business if your shoppers can understand it. For example, a French-speaking customer won’t benefit from a review written in Portuguese. Ecommerce is all about convenience, and your customers aren’t going to take time to look up translations. This is where review translation widgets come in. Consumers have made it clear how important they consider translated product details, with 72.4% saying they’re more likely to buy a product if they can read about it in their own language. In addition, more than 56% of consumers consider information in their native language to be more important than price (Harvard Business Review).

The Two Main Methods of Review Translation

1. Partial Translations: Default Strings Only

Default strings are the company-created copy that customers see in reviews, such as a “verified buyer” badge or buyer profile attributes. While this information is important to shoppers, it is only helpful when combined with a customer review that potential buyers can read in their own language. Without this, the information in the default strings is irrelevant. This is the most common type of translation, but it leaves out the essential aspect of a review. The buyer-submitted content is the most important and influential part of a product review. It captures the customer’s personal experience with the product, answers potential buyers’ questions, and helps them better understand why they should purchase it.

2. Full Translations: Default Strings and Customer Review Content

The second method of review translation provides much more value to consumers. It transforms both the default strings and the consumer-generated review content into a shopper’s native language. This means that when a customer clicks on the “translate” button, they see every persuasive and informative piece of the review in their own language. Fully translated reviews help customers make informed purchase decisions no matter what language they speak.

Full Review Translations Increase Coverage Across all Geographies

Review coverage has a dramatic impact on product sales. When a product gets its first five reviews, we see a sales lift of 10%. That percentage skyrockets to 40% at 100 reviews. These statistics show just how important it is to make the most of every review your products receive. Many ecommerce companies experience varying review coverage across geographies. Your company may have excellent coverage from reviewers in the U.S. but little to no coverage in Mexico. When this happens, your product reviews lose their power because shoppers can’t understand them, and you miss out on innumerable conversions.On-demand review translation can save your sales by maximizing review coverage without the need for increased review collection efforts. By making every review accessible to every shopper, you harness the influential power of customer reviews across all geographies.

How Pixlee TurnTo Review Translations Work

Unlike many of our competitors, Pixlee TurnTo understands the value of customer-generated review content. We created a review widget that translates both default text strings and shopper review content, so your customers have every opportunity to learn more about your product through the eyes of verified buyers. Our advanced review translation widget will display a “translate” button when the review content doesn’t match the shopper’s display language. When the customer clicks this, the review is sent to the Google Translate API and updates the content in the appropriate language. The translation process happens so quickly it appears instantaneous to shoppers and provides a seamless user experience.