It’s all about the user – whether that user is German, English, French, Italian or Estonian - any of the 500+ million European citizens from one of the 51 countries, speaking (and reading) dozens of languages. In the European Union (EU) alone we have 28 countries and 24 officially recognized languages. It is therefore not surprising that corporations seeking to grow their exports and business in European markets face significant challenges. An online strategy, fit for purpose, is an essential element for success in Europe and that strategy has to focus on your specific targeted profiles who first have to easily find your website site (through the plethora of search engines) and then use it, knowing that today’s users demand localized, relevant content.
This means that more than ever, online success is directly linked to great user experience – UX for short – which “encompasses all aspects of the end-user's interaction with the company, its services, and its products”. Today’s online user demands, and is increasingly able to get, content adapted to meet their specific needs. The user should experience no hindrance to their understanding, enjoyment and use of the site. The first obvious, but often overlooked, requirement is lingual (all too often we hear “our English language .com site works everywhere”…) and then we can dive into the other required online UX disciplines, including: engineering, marketing, graphical and design (industrial and interface). Let’s see how two American behemoths of the online world tackle Europe online.
Amazon is a great example of best practice! Francois Saugie, Amazon’s EU Director of Seller Services states, “Amazon has approached Europe as a single market since we launched”, which was all the way back in 1998 with two websites, one in the United Kingdom for English-speaking Europeans, and the second in Germany for German-speakers (Germany, Austria, parts of Switzerland…). Roll on 18 years and today Amazon has six websites in Europe: France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and United Kingdom, http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/gateway-eu (have a browse) and each one states: “Wherever you are, get what you want--fast--from our European family of websites”. Saugie notes “European businesses are able to sell on any of our websites, to any customer, anywhere in Europe.” Amazon has had a record Christmas 2015 trading across Europe. That comes on the back of huge investments of >$16 billion since 2010, to expand its warehouses, fulfilment centres (28 of them now), delivery network, research and development capability, and to build new infrastructure to support the ever expanding cloud-computing business. Amazon has a direct European presence in Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Romania and the UK. “We are seeing stronger demand than ever from our customers all across Europe, and we see lots more opportunity across Amazon’s businesses to invent and invest for the future,” said Xavier Garambois, Amazon Vice President for EU retail. In employment terms, that has translated into a European workforce of over 40,000 permanent staff, with another 10,000 due to be recruited in 2016 (the same number as 2015).
Apple must be the extreme example of best practice for user experience and success in Europe. Apple has 36 websites in Europe: http://www.apple.com/choose-your-country/ (worth checking out) and each country site is adapted for that market with the iconic UX that is the cornerstone of Apple’s success. Apple has invested billions in Europe and continues to do so, most recently with $2 billion for two new data centres in Ireland and Denmark, due to open in 2017. Indeed this month Apple announced that it will open its first iOS development centre in Europe, to provide developers in Europe the practical skills and training to develop iOS apps. “Europe is home to some of the most creative developers in the world and we’re thrilled to be helping the next generation of entrepreneurs….get the skills they need for success,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “The phenomenal success of the App Store is one of the driving forces behind the more than 1.4 million jobs Apple has created in Europe and presents unlimited opportunities for people of all ages and businesses of all sizes across the continent.” Of those 1.4million jobs, 1.2 million are attributable to the ecosystem community of app creators, software engineers and entrepreneurs building apps for iOS, as well as non-IT jobs supported directly and indirectly through the app economy. This job creation estimate is based on research by Dr. Michael Mandel, Progressive Policy Institute “App Economy Jobs in Europe,” January 21, 2016 where he adds that the App Store® growth has helped European developers earn >€10.2 billion through app sales around the world.
So how is your European website localization? Please tell us how are you doing, send us a link(s) and share your experiences(s).
