Setting up a multilingual Shopify shop – benefits and implementation

As a Shopify merchant, you can sell your products across national borders and thus expand your target audience. To do this, you should at least offer your shop in English as well, so that you can reach more people and potentially increase your turnover.

In this post, I’d like to give you all the key information you need if you’re thinking about setting up a multilingual Shopify shop.

What are the benefits of multilingual support for your Shopify shop?

The benefits of multilingual functionality on Shopify include expanding your reach, improving customer loyalty and, ultimately, boosting your turnover.

#1 Expanding the target audience

• Reaching international customers: If you offer your shop in several languages, you can appeal to customers from different countries who might otherwise find it difficult to understand your products. This is particularly important in highly globalised sectors.
• Reaching a wider audience: You’re not just targeting customers in your home market, but also reaching people who live in your region but speak a different language.

#2 Improved User experience

• Building trust: Customers feel more at ease when they receive information about products and ordering processes in their native language. This helps to build trust and reduces the likelihood of customers abandoning their purchase.
• Better customer service: A multilingual website allows you to offer your customers an optimised shopping experience, as they do not have to overcome any language barriers to find their way around or receive support.

#3 Higher conversion rate

• More sales: Studies show that people are more likely to shop at a store if the content is available in their native language. Multilingualism can therefore lead directly to a higher conversion rate.
• Fewer abandoned baskets: Customers who can discover and understand products in their own language feel less uncertainty when making a purchase and are more likely to complete their purchase.

#4 SEO benefits

• Better visibility in search engines: Multilingual content enables you to appear in international search engine rankings. For example, if you offer your shop in English and French, you can rank higher in both English-speaking and French-speaking markets.
• Local SEO optimisation: By using linguistically tailored URLs and hreflang tags, you can improve your local search engine optimisation, ensuring your website is found more easily in different countries.

How do you set up your Shopify shop to be multilingual?

Shopify offers the option to run your shop in five different languages as standard; Shopify Plus extends this feature to twenty. It is important to note that your Shopify theme must be compatible with multiple languages.

To add another language, go to ‘Settings’ > ‘Languages’ in your Shopify admin, and enable the option for multilingual URLs. The shop will then need to be translated into the relevant language. Shopify does not offer a built-in full translation feature, but there are apps that enable this. Here are the three most popular apps:

• Langify: A popular app for translating content into several languages.
• Weglot: A fully automated translation solution that is easy to integrate.
• Shopify Translate & Adapt (Shopify’s own solution): Offers basic features for translating your shop.

Alternatively, you can, of course, do the translation manually without using an app. However, depending on the size of your shop, this can be quite a challenge. What’s more, the apps help you to correctly configure settings such as your Shopify SEO setup for multiple languages. I would therefore advise you to use one of the apps. Let’s take a closer look at them.

1. Langify

Features:

• Manual translations: You can translate every page, product description and other content yourself.
• SEO support: Supports multilingual SEO, including the customisation of meta titles, meta descriptions and hreflang tags.
• Flexible language selection: You can add several languages and switch between them manually.
• Design integration: Customising the language switcher for a seamless front-end design.

Advantages:

• Full control over all translations.
• SEO-optimised.
• Supports the translation of legal pages, product descriptions, checkout pages and notifications.

Disadvantages:

• No automatic translation function (all translations must be carried out manually).
• Time-consuming when there are many products or pages to be translated.
• Additional costs per language.

Price: Around 17.50 USD per month, plus additional charges for many languages.

Ideal for: Traders who require manual control and accurate translations.

2. Weglot

Features:

• Automatic translation: Automates the translation process and allows you to add language versions straight away.
• Manual adjustments: Once the automatic translation is complete, you can edit the translations if necessary.
• SEO support: Generates SEO-friendly URLs and automatically adds hreflang tags.
• Multichannel translations: Also translates content from apps, pop-ups and widgets.

Advantages:

• Quick set-up with instant translation into many languages.
• Easy to integrate, without the need for in-depth technical knowledge.
• Supports more than 100 languages.
• Automatic SEO optimisation for multilingual content.

Disadvantages:

• Automatic translations may contain inaccuracies that need to be corrected manually.
• There is a limit on the number of words in the cheaper plans.
• Higher monthly costs compared with other solutions.

Price: From around 15 EUR per month for small shops (limited to 10,000 words); higher rates apply for larger shops.

Ideal for: retailers who need fast, automatic translations and are prepared to pay a higher price for a more comprehensive solution.

3. Shopify Translate & Adapt

Features:

• Manual translations: You can translate various elements, such as products, categories and legal pages, manually.
• Automatic suggestions: The app provides basic translation suggestions for content, which you can edit manually.
• Multilingual support: You can add and manage several languages at the same time.
• SEO support: You can customise SEO-related content, such as meta titles and meta descriptions, for each language.

Advantages:

• There are no additional costs, as it is a native Shopify app.
• Offers basic translation functions without the need for additional apps.
• Easy to use and integrated directly into Shopify.
• Supports both manual and automatic translation suggestions.

Disadvantages:

• This is not a fully automatic translation (the automatic function is rudimentary).
• Fewer features compared to other apps.
• Not ideal for very complex online shops with lots of languages and pages.

Price: Free (a built-in feature of Shopify).

Ideal for: Retailers looking for a simple, free solution for basic multilingual capabilities who do not require comprehensive translation features.

Overview of translation apps

My recommendation:

• Langify is ideal for Shopify merchants looking for full control over translations and an SEO-optimised solution.
• Weglot is ideal for those who prefer a fast, fully automated solution and are prepared to pay a higher price for it.
• Shopify Translate & Adapt is a good choice for retailers who are looking for a simple, free solution directly from Shopify and do not require extremely comprehensive translation features.

Conclusion: Setting up Shopify in multiple languages – it’s easier with the right app

The benefits of offering multiple languages are clear: a better user experience, higher conversion rates and greater visibility in search engines. I therefore always recommend integrating at least English into Shopify shops, thereby offering two languages. At Golden Web Age, we usually use Weglot for this. As well as its automatic translation feature, the app’s excellent user-friendliness makes it well worth integrating, even for a medium-sized shop. If you have any questions about setting up a multilingual site, we’d be happy to help. As a Shopify agency, we support clients across all areas of e-commerce.

FAQ on Shopify’s multilingual functionality