Consumers spend more and more time on their mobile devices to search and buy products online.  

And this trend is visible on many different markets across the world.

That’s why it is the perfect time to move your e-commerce business to mobile screens and benefit from the growing popularity of m-commerce. But don’t stop there.

To take your business to the next level and ensure your app can reach a wide audience, you’ll need to make sure it’s ready for the global market.

Below you can find some tips on how to make your e-commerce app ready for the world.

1. Ensure user-friendly navigation

If you’re planning to launch your e-commerce app in many markets, it will have to support many languages. This means you’ll have to localise your app for each and every country to make sure your target users can understand the content. This process isn’t limited only to translating text stings that are displayed on the screen. To ensure that your app is ready for the world you’ll need to focus also on visuals, buttons and contact forms. If you use icons or symbols instead of text, double check if the meaning of these items is clear to your potential consumers across the world.

The next step is to ensure that your buttons are big enough to accommodate translated strings. Most languages are longer than English, so keep in mind that more space may be required to display the content correctly. Remember also to increase form input fields, so it’s easier for your users to type in the text in any language.

2. Pick the right marketing channels

Once your e-commerce app is localised and adapted to consumers from other markets, it’s time to let the world know about your product. Marketing strategies or social media platforms that worked on you local market may fail to be successful when reaching out to potential users abroad.

To be on the safe side, define where your potential consumers hang out on the target market and promote your app on the right platforms. In some countries it will be enough to launch social media campaigns, while on other markets you’ll also need to set up a localised website about your app or adapt the traditional approach and focus on press releases or campaigns in printed media.

3. Make sure your app can be easily discovered

To make your e-commerce app truly global you’ll have to optimise it for the global market. And this is where effective mobile SEO localisation comes in. Remember also to adapt your app store descriptions to each and every market. In fact, 63% of apps are discovered through app store searches, so find out what keywords will work for your target market. But don’t limit your efforts to keywords only. Your target customers may have different preferences when it comes to descriptions displayed in app stores. Customise the text style and screenshots to your target users to make sure that your app can easily appeal to your new potential consumers.

4. Localise customer support features

From attractive visuals through FAQs, extra buttons and menu items to chatbots for quick support – there are many strategies to make the purchase process smoother and quicker. But things may get more complicated if you want to offer the same features in your mobile app adapted for other markets.

The language and cultural barriers can make your customer support features less effective or even unclear. Again, remember to research your target market to be able to adapt the layout, colours, icons and texts accordingly. After all, quick access to useful content can help you retain your buyers and prevent them from abandoning the shopping cart.

With some little tweaking you can make your e-commerce app ready to conquer the world and ensure that your business can thrive abroad regardless of language or cultural differences.

Dorota Pawlak

Dorota helps digital brands infuse their content with a local touch. She is a localization consultant, translator specialized in IT, prompt engineer, and a book author. Dorota teaches online courses on localization, writes for her blog and a Medium publication. She also runs a Small Biz AI, a Substack newsletter for freelancers and small business owners ready to discover handy AI tools.