Hi Guys
Ever thought of selling items on other eBay sites but dona speaka da lingo?
It’s easy on eBay.com and ebay.au etc as I am informed that English is widely spoken there. But what about elsewhere? One of the knock on effects of the current exchange rates is the GBP to Euro exchange rate which is very advantageous to buyers in the euro zone. This opens up the opportunity to sell on other European sites. If you have a HOT selling product in the UK it will often sell well in other parts of the world. Only problem they do not speak English. You can get your listing translated, there are plenty of programs and website on the internet that will translate you copy into the most commonly spoken languages. Some are very good some not so, I always use Google translate to answer questions sent to me in foreign languages (I also used it for the title of this post). It is often good enough for this purpose but I would not use it to translate my sales copy.
You will need to make the sales copy on a foreign site as professional as it looks on an English language site. Now the services of a professional translator make sound like an expensive option…. But there are other solutions. Try using www.elance.com this is a service that allows e-services to be put out to tender. It works by letting you post a job and people will bid to for the job, it’s a bit like eBay in reverse, the bids often reduce in cost. You can check out each bidder’s satisfaction rating and see sample of their work before agreeing a price for the translation. Use the translation to list on the foreign websites
If you have lots of sales copy to translate get this done as one job as it will work out cheaper, some translators work on a fixed fee for every hundred words. Elance have many different services so it’s worth checking out the website and having a look at what’s on offer. As an alternative there is a UK website called www.studentgems.com that also offer a much wider range of services including translation, drop by the website its well worth a look you may see some ideas or services you can use in the future.
Addio per ora
Hi Robert,
Very interesting post. Useful to extend the business all over the world.
You’re right for the sales letter, it should be done by a professional. The http://www.elance.com idea is great.
Thanks for the tips.
Mostafa
http://mostafaalid.com/
Hi,
I am one of John’s students, just wanted to say hello. Nice blog and good content.. How are you enjoying the masterclass course so far?
/ Tomas Lodén
Traffic Test Lab
Hi Robert,
Lei parla italiano da vero?…only joking…
Nice blog and interesting post. Thanks for recommending studentgems site, very interesting.
Speak to you soon,
Gordan Bosnjak
http://www.gordanbos.com
Hi guys thanks for dropping by and posting, this is the first post that has had a big responce. I am enjoying John masterclass, brilliant I feel as though I have achieved so much already.
Cheers
rob
Hello Rob,
Thanks for your comment on my blog, I find your site very interesting, ended up reading most of the posts so thats got to be a good sign.
I’ll make a note of those translation sites, could be useful later.
I did contemplate selling physical products initially but ended up going the internet marketing route to start with, mainly as my day job as an engineer takes me all over the place and difficult to normal trading as you need a base. May yet have a go later though, and your ebay articles are interesting. I had noticed that Amazon seemed to be getting a bigger presence on the web these days, hadn’t realised the reasons though.
Good luck with the course and other ventures.
Regards
Dave
Hi Dave, thanks for the comment, I am trying to move from selling physical products because I want to move to spain in the next few years and can imagine trying to ship physical products to be a nightmare. So its the digital route for me!!
Cheers
Rob
Great blog site! Some great information I’ll keep popping back to see more…
Cheers
Alex
Good idea Robert. Surprisingly, I make lots of sales to European / non English speaking countries
http://shop.ebay.co.uk/merchant/phoenix-e-books-uk
yet I never list on non-English eBays or have my listings translated. Many people don’t realise that the second largest eBay market (by some considerable margin -much bigger than eBay UK) after .com is in fact eBay.de…EBay Germany. Having some lisings translated into Deutsch might be worth considering as theres obviously a huge market there.
Hi Robert
I recently posted a similar post on one of my blogs. I agree that it would be disasterous to use an automated translation program for a salesletter. I’ve read salesletters written by people for whom English is obviously their second language and, rightly or wrongly, it doesn’t instil confidence. I’m familiar with elance but wasn’t aware of Student Gems, though, so thanks for that.