Your Shopify store translates text but shows identical images to every market. Here’s how automatic image localization closes that gap.
TLDR: Ready to automate your image localization? Install Product Image Translate Easy and let the right images display to the right customers – automatically.
Your Shopify store speaks multiple languages. Product descriptions adapt. Checkout flows translate. Navigation menus adjust. But when customers view your products, every market sees identical images – regardless of language.
This is Shopify’s image localization gap. And closing it means implementing automatic language-specific image display.
This guide covers how automatic image localization works, why it matters for international conversion rates, and how to implement it without technical complexity.
Automatic image localization means your store detects a customer’s language selection and displays corresponding product images without manual intervention.
A customer in Germany switches your store to German. Instantly, product descriptions appear in German, prices show in euros, and – with proper image localization – product images display with German text. Size charts show centimeters and EU sizes. Infographics use German labels. Packaging shots show German-language labels.
The “automatic” part is crucial. You’re not manually showing products to different customers. Your system handles language detection and serves appropriate images in real-time, for every product view, for every customer.
Manual approaches to image localization don’t scale.
Consider what “manual” would mean: creating separate product pages for each language, manually directing customers to language-appropriate pages, maintaining multiple versions of every product listing. This works for five products in two languages. It collapses for fifty products in five languages.
Automatic localization lets you maintain a single product catalog while serving localized visual experiences. One product listing. One inventory count. One price configuration. Multiple image variants served automatically based on customer context.
This is how text translation already works in Shopify – you have one product description with multiple translation variants, served automatically. Image localization extends the same principle to visual content.
Before images can display by language, your store needs to know what language the customer wants. Shopify provides several mechanisms for this.
Shopify Markets assigns customers to markets based on location, domain, or customer selection. Each market can have an associated language. A customer accessing yourstore.de is likely in your German market; a customer on yourstore.com/fr is likely in French.
Language selectors let customers explicitly choose their preferred language. A dropdown or flag-based selector is common in store headers or footers.
Geolocation can suggest a language based on customer IP address location. This is less reliable but can help guide customers to appropriate language settings.
However a customer’s language gets set, that preference is available to apps and theme code throughout their session. Image localization tools read this preference to determine which images to display.
Shopify’s translation infrastructure – Translate & Adapt and third-party apps – handles text content throughout your store. These apps work by identifying translatable strings and storing translation variants.
But images aren’t strings. A JPEG uploaded to Shopify is a binary media file, not translatable text. Translation apps have no mechanism to:
This isn’t a bug or missing feature. It’s a fundamental scope boundary. Translation apps translate text. Images require different handling.
Product Image Translate Easy bridges the gap between Shopify’s language detection and image display.
The app integrates with your store and monitors the language context for each customer session. When a customer views a product, the app checks: does this product have image variants for this customer’s language?
If yes, the app serves the localized variant instead of the default image. If no (language not configured, or no variant uploaded), the default image displays.
This happens automatically for every product view. You configure image variants once; the app handles ongoing delivery.
Implementation follows a clear workflow.
Connect the app. Install Product Image Translate Easy from the Shopify App Store. The app connects to your store and integrates with your existing language/market configuration.
Prepare localized images. Before uploading anything, create your translated image variants. For each image containing text, you need a version for each target language. Maintain consistent dimensions and visual style.
Upload and map variants. Within the app, select a product and upload your localized images. Map each variant to its language code: German images to DE, French to FR, Spanish to ES, and so on.
Publish and verify. Activate your configuration and test. Browse your store in each target language, confirming appropriate images display. Check desktop and mobile experiences.
Expand coverage. Start with high-priority products and markets. Once verified, expand to additional products systematically.
Not every product image benefits equally from localization. Prioritize images where text content directly affects purchase decisions.
Size charts top the priority list for any apparel or sized product. Measurement systems and size naming conventions vary globally. A customer who can’t interpret your size chart won’t buy confidently.
Specification infographics matter for technical products. Feature callouts, comparison charts, and benefit summaries need translation to communicate effectively.
Label and packaging images are critical for supplements, cosmetics, and food products where customers examine ingredient lists and usage instructions.
Instruction graphics showing assembly, usage, or care need translation when they contain text rather than universal icons.
Simple product photography without text overlays generally doesn’t need localization. Focus your effort where it matters.
Automatic image localization adds a processing layer to image delivery. Well-implemented, this has negligible performance impact. Poorly implemented, it could affect page load speed.
Product Image Translate Easy is designed for performance. Images serve from optimized infrastructure. Language detection happens efficiently. The user experience difference is imperceptible.
However, your image files themselves matter. Localized images should be properly optimized – compressed appropriately, sized correctly for display, using efficient formats. Don’t upload massive uncompressed files in any language.
After implementing automatic image localization, track key metrics by market.
Conversion rate by language/market. Compare conversion rates before and after localization. The gap between domestic and international conversion rates should narrow.
Return rates by market. Particularly for sized products, returns due to sizing issues should decrease as customers can actually read your size charts.
Support tickets by market. Questions answered by image content (sizing, ingredients, specifications) should decrease for localized markets.
Time on page and bounce rate. Customers who can fully understand your product pages engage longer and bounce less often.
These metrics help quantify localization ROI and prioritize further expansion.
Once you’ve localized your priority products for priority markets, expansion is straightforward.
Adding a new language means creating image variants for that language and uploading them to existing products. No new products, no catalog restructuring.
Adding new products means creating localized variants as part of your product launch workflow. Build localization into your standard process rather than treating it as a separate project.
Updating existing images means updating all language variants when you revise designs. Maintain version consistency across languages.
The system scales linearly. More languages means more image variants to manage, but the management approach stays identical.
Automatic image localization is one component of comprehensive international selling. Text translation, currency handling, payment methods, and shipping all need attention alongside visual localization.
Ready to automate your image localization? Install Product Image Translate Easy and let the right images display to the right customers – automatically.