Text translation is necessary but not sufficient. Your product images still show English to international customers. Here’s the missing piece.
TLDR: Ready to complete your localization strategy? Install Product Image Translate Easy and give every market the complete experience they deserve.
You’ve invested in international expansion. Shopify Markets is configured. Translation apps are installed. Product descriptions read beautifully in five languages. Your checkout flow works seamlessly across currencies.
But your international conversion rates lag behind domestic performance. Something’s missing.
That something is almost certainly visual content localization. Text translation is necessary but not sufficient. Until your images speak your customers’ languages too, your localization strategy has a gap.
Here’s the paradox: the better your text translation, the more jarring untranslated images become.
When a store is entirely in English, international customers expect an English experience. They’re shopping a foreign store and they know it. Friction is expected.
But when your product descriptions, navigation, checkout, and notifications are all perfectly localized, customers expect a native experience. They’re browsing in their language. Everything feels local – until they encounter a size chart in English, an infographic they can’t read, a packaging shot with foreign labels.
The contrast is worse than no translation at all. You’ve set expectations of a localized experience and then failed to deliver completely.
This is why merchants with sophisticated translation setups often have larger localization gaps than merchants who’ve done nothing. The translation success highlights the image failure.
Understanding the gap requires understanding what translation apps do and don’t handle.
Apps like Shopify’s Translate & Adapt scan your store for text strings. They find product titles, descriptions, collection names, navigation labels, theme text, checkout copy, and notification content. They store translations for each string. They serve the appropriate translation based on customer language selection.
This is impressive functionality covering substantial store content. If your entire store were text, translation apps would handle everything.
But your store isn’t just text. It’s media: images, videos, PDFs. These aren’t strings. Translation apps can’t extract text from your size chart JPEG. They can’t read the words in your infographic PNG. They can’t swap your English product video for a German one.
Media localization requires different tools – tools specifically designed to detect language context and serve appropriate visual assets.
Audit your store from an international customer’s perspective. Switch to German. Browse your products. What do you see?
Most likely: perfect German descriptions accompanying English images. Size charts in inches with US sizing. Feature infographics with English callouts. Packaging shots with English labels. Spec sheets with English specifications.
Your German customer can read your product description but not your product images. They have half the information they need to buy confidently.
Now multiply this across every product and every international market. That’s the scale of your localization gap.
Incomplete localization costs conversions through multiple mechanisms.
Information barriers. Customers can’t read critical details – sizing, ingredients, specifications. Without this information, they can’t buy confidently. Some will contact support (costly). Most will leave (costlier).
Trust erosion. The mismatch between polished translations and untranslated images signals incomplete effort. Customers wonder what else isn’t properly localized. Are prices correct? Will shipping work? Is this really meant for my market?
Increased returns. Customers who buy despite information barriers often buy wrong. They guess at sizes. They miss specification details. Returns cost money and goodwill.
Competitive disadvantage. If your competitors have complete localization – text and images – and you don’t, you’re offering an inferior experience. Customers notice.
Quantifying exactly how much this costs is difficult because you can’t easily measure sales that didn’t happen. But if your international conversion rate is significantly lower than domestic, localization gaps are a likely contributor.
Closing the gap requires treating image localization with the same seriousness as text translation.
Product Image Translate Easy provides the missing capability. The app integrates with your store’s language detection and serves appropriate image variants based on customer context. German customers see German images. French customers see French images. Your product catalog stays unified.
The implementation approach parallels text translation:
You’ve already done this for text. Extending to images is a natural progression.
Not every image needs translation. Focus on images where text content matters.
Size charts are critical for apparel and sized products. Measurements and size labels need localization.
Infographics explaining features, benefits, or comparisons need their text translated.
Label and packaging shots matter for products where label content drives decisions – supplements, cosmetics, food.
Instruction graphics need translation when they contain text rather than universal icons.
Compliance imagery may need market-specific variants. EU customers might need different compliance marks than US customers.
Simple product photography without text overlays doesn’t need localization. Lifestyle shots, detail images, and plain product photos can stay universal.
Complete localization means customers in any market experience your store as if it were built for them. Text speaks their language. Images communicate in their language. Pricing, payment, and shipping work for their context.
You’ve built the text layer. The image layer completes it.
Your translation investment is valuable. Protect it by completing the job.
Audit your product images for text content. Identify high-priority products and markets. Create localized image variants. Implement Product Image Translate Easy to serve appropriate images automatically.
The gap between “good enough” and “complete” localization is where international sales are won and lost.
Ready to complete your localization strategy? Install Product Image Translate Easy and give every market the complete experience they deserve.