“Free machine translation just didn’t
cut it. The quality of the output was so
poor we alienated our customers and
didn’t meet Amazon’s standards for
trading online, which meant we had
our Amazon store shut down and lost a
lot of money. We needed a high-quality
translation service with a personal,
tailored-to-us approach, with a partner
that understood our business, our time
frame and of course, our budget. SDL
did all of that and much more.”
– Marc Rees, Manager of Fuze Ltd.
Bad Translation: The Death
Knell For Online Businesses
Customer background
Fuze Ltd. is a small, highly-successful, online merchandiser and gift
retailer. Manager Marc Rees and two full time employees are in
charge of the business which has had an active online presence
since 2005. Fuze’s business has grown rapidly in recent years and
has now expanded into international online sales.
The challenge
Website: Amazon Seller
Industry: Merchandise and Gifts
Size: Small to Medium Business
Products: 55,674
Amazon Star Rating: 4.8 stars
Language
Following the success of Fuze’s Amazon UK store, Marc chose to
expand his operations globally, branching out to the Amazon Japan
market. In order to engage with his new Japanese audience, he
needed to translate product descriptions, marketing information,
customer communications and responses. Looking to minimize
costs, Marc opted to use a leading free online machine translation
tool. However, the translated content was inaccurate and confusing
to new customers – which led to several complaints.
With bad reviews bringing Fuze’s all-important ratings down,
Amazon Japan intervened and removed the shop from its platform,
closing down any opportunity Marc had to operate in this lucrative
market. He needed to find a solution to his translation problem fast,
or risk losing even more revenue.
Case Study | Bad translation: the death knell for online businesses
2
The solution
About SDL Language Cloud
Simple, powerful and fast; SDL Language
Cloud puts you in full control of every
translation project. This is your hasslefree way to raise the bar on quality whilst
accelerating speed to market of your
Amazon webpages and smoothing the
collaboration process. Even better, our
smart translation memory means that the
more you translate, the more you save.
The definitive professional translation
service – fast, affordable and dependable.
All projects, all sizes, all formats, all
languages, one definitive high standard.
Get translation whenever you need. Upload
your Amazon webpage and marketing
content now for an affordable, ISO-certified
translation quote in virtually any language.
Find out more
It was clear that pure machine translation couldn’t deliver the
accuracy or quality required to compete in international markets, so
Marc began researching alternative solutions. He contacted several
translation providers and found SDL Language Cloud Managed
Translation (recommended by Amazon) to be the best fit, with a
translation solution that was tailored to his business needs. SDL’s
translation quality was in a different league from a free online
translation tool, using human translators who not only spoke
Japanese but also lived it. Their local knowledge of the culture and
language was invaluable.
It took Marc five months to find an alternative solution, which he
estimates cost him £25,000 in lost revenue. But after engaging
with SDL, Fuze Japan was back online within days, this time with
accurate translations that made sense – and that Marc could trust.
The total cost with SDL was just £150 – a fraction of the money
that he lost while his site was offline after using this leading free
translation service.
The cost of using a free online machine translation tool:
£25,000 in lost revenue.
The cost of using SDL to get back online: £150
The benefits
Communicating with potential customers in their local language
puts businesses like Fuze ahead in international markets. According
to Marc, “From day one SDL listened and understood the needs and
objectives of the business. Looking professional when competing
with businesses abroad is so important to sales and success. SDL
enabled us to achieve something that looks and reads like a local
business.”
Fuze now easily and quickly manages its translation requests
through SDL Language Cloud. The platform allows users to
drag and drop a file, select a translation type and then specify
the required language and deadline. Language Cloud offers a
comprehensive breakdown of translation methods, costs and
project progress, helping companies like Fuze to go to global
markets quickly and with confidence.
Learn more at SDL.com
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