Offer your store in multiple languages...

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   I've searched the forums, but haven't really found anything that answers my question.  Perhaps someone out there has some ideas...

Basically, I'd like to run ProductCart in such a manner as to be able to give the customer the ability to select their preferred language.  The only thing I can come up with that makes some sense would be maybe to have two separate shopping carts running, one for each language.  Obviously, this seems like it would get very cumbersome very quickly!  

So, with that obvious solution out of the way, does anyone have any other ideas that may allow a customer to switch languages on the fly that wouldn't involve maintaining two separate instances of ProductCart (and maintaining two separate databases as well)?  Our site ACIHoist.com caters to a fair amount of Latin American traffic and our location in south Florida has enabled to make lots of valuable Latin American connections.  Ultimately, though, it would be nice to have a site that can better cater to those customers (especially those whose command of or comfort with English may be limited).  

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

Edited by Sangano - 18-October-2008 at 12:07pm

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Sangano Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 04-October-2007 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote Sangano Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: Offer your store in multiple languages... Posted: 10-October-2008 at 5:30pm
	I've searched the forums, but haven't really found anything that answers my question. Perhaps someone out there has some ideas... Basically, I'd like to run ProductCart in such a manner as to be able to give the customer the ability to select their preferred language. The only thing I can come up with that makes some sense would be maybe to have two separate shopping carts running, one for each language. Obviously, this seems like it would get very cumbersome very quickly! So, with that obvious solution out of the way, does anyone have any other ideas that may allow a customer to switch languages on the fly that wouldn't involve maintaining two separate instances of ProductCart (and maintaining two separate databases as well)? Our site ACIHoist.com caters to a fair amount of Latin American traffic and our location in south Florida has enabled to make lots of valuable Latin American connections. Ultimately, though, it would be nice to have a site that can better cater to those customers (especially those whose command of or comfort with English may be limited). Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated! Edited by Sangano - 18-October-2008 at 12:07pm

katharina Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Senior Member Joined: 25-October-2005 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote katharina Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 10-October-2008 at 6:40pm
	We import German items into the USA, so we are also faced with 2 languages. We choose to have our site in English only, because our business is in the USA and we don't want any confusions about it. You also have to be careful with translations, it can have legal strings (in very rare occations). We do sometimes have the German name of a product with the English name. Example: New Years Lead (Bleigiessen). This mainly helps with search engines, but also pleases some customers. Overall I have found that all Germans in the USA are very good in English. I haven't met one yet that had problems with English, even when they only speak German at home. I would think that you may underestimate your clients capabilities. On the other hand it should not be to hard to have it in dual language. Go into the language.asp file and put the English term followed by the Spanish in another color. It's really easy to be done. On content pages run two colums side by side. This only works with 2 languages, more then that would need more work. Katharina

Sangano Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 04-October-2007 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote Sangano Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 13-October-2008 at 1:04pm
	Katharina, Thank you for the suggestion. I've thought of that as well, but I am looking for something a little bit more sepatrate from one another with a dedicated page for each language (in our case Spanish vs English). While many of our Latin American customers have some skill in English, many more would prefer to deal with us in Spanish (which we currently handle over the phone). Ideally, though, I'd like to overcome that language barrier the moment they land on the site by allowing them to choose their preference. Running two versions of the same text on every page could get a bit crowded, especially for our more complicated products. Edited by Sangano - 13-October-2008 at 1:10pm

Sangano Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 04-October-2007 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote Sangano Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 13-October-2008 at 1:22pm
	Here's an idea: What if I ran two ProductCart apps on my server (ex> English.MySite.com & Espanol.MySite.com) and had them point to the same database? Then, regardless of what language version of the site they use, they can still pull up their order information. Does this make sense to anybody as a potential route to dual language nirvana? It's not ideal, as we'd have to maintain two different SKUs for each product (one for each language). But the benefit would be that if a customer was looking for their order in a version of the site other than the one it was placed in, they'd still be able to see the order contents (albeit with the original order's item descriptions). I don't know. Just throwing ideas out there. Maybe there's something I'm missing that someone can add to the conversation?

Erik @ Port City Web Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Certified ProductCart Developers Joined: 07-November-2008 Location: Portsmouth, NH Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote Erik @ Port City Web Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 20-November-2008 at 5:40pm
	Hi Sangano - We've implemented multiple languages with ProductCart. Check out this site http://www.novaflex.com/ to see how we did it. If you would like a quote, please call or email me. Thanks, Erik Crago President and CEO Port City Web, LLC erik@portcityweb.com www.portcityweb.com 800-291-7147 ext 702