boohoo International Growth Case Study
An example of our Translation work relating to ecommerce, etailers, fast fashion, AWS, quick turnaround, brand voice.
“We would be happy to recommend Talking Heads to other ecommerce brands.”
boohoo ecommerce Director
The Requirement
In 2013 boohoo were preparing to enter their first international market and required a suitable translation partner. The first market, France, would hopefully lead to Germany, Italy and Spain if successful. Translations were required of product information, site content, SEO content and marketing text, to be provided in a technologically efficient format.
The Solution
Talking Heads offers a fully immersive account solution, providing boohoo with confidence in quality, efficiency and pricing across the many languages they now operate in.
Research
Understanding our client and copy content is key to delivering effective translations. Every Account Manager and Project Manager conducts research into the sector, company, products and ‘tone of voice’, ensuring their complete understanding of the content they are managing.
boohoo has a very strong ‘tone of voice’ which greatly impacts on translations. Part of our research is to review their English language website, social media accounts, Brand Guidelines and Customer Profiles and create suitable training for any linguists who work on the content.
Recruitment
Working from our in-house pool of nearly 11,000 worldwide linguists, internal recruitment and training is carried out to ensure the best linguists are chosen, based on mother-tongue language, sector expertise and experience in translating and copywriting for the sector, product and type of content. A selection of linguists is then shortlisted and trained / inducted in the account brand and project/s.
With such a contemporary, youthful brand, recruitment and training of suitable linguists is crucial – no old-fashioned translators required here!
Formatting / Implementation
As a tech-based company, boohoo required a fully automated solution for getting the translations on to their international sites, with no manual management at their end. The process included:
Automatic extraction of English text from .com website
Conversion from technical format to useable format
Full translation process by Talking Heads
Translated content uploaded on to relevant international sites
Spot checked in-situ by Talking Heads
Other content, such as marketing copy and SEO keywords are handled using simple Excel or Word files, at the request of the client.
Multilingual publishing / editorial content was also produced for boohoo’s customer print magazine Stylefix.
TM Management
One of the first steps was to look at their source EN copy, and make suggestions which would reduce word count and save money. These included altering the structure of sentences to remove variable data, so that sentences would only need to be translated once and not on every product, the standardising of sizing data and other descriptions and formatting.
Having worked with boohoo for many years, the TM (Translation Memory) we hold for them is comprehensive. For each new translation requirement, we can achieve the highest level of consistency and quality, by referring to this TM. Discounts are also made possible as many parts of standard text are kept on record. This TM also becomes part of any new linguist’s brand training / style guide.
When revised content is sent to us for the amendments to be translated, we load it into our TM and make changes to the revised sections only, ensuring the most cost effective and efficient result.
Pricing
Like any business, our customer boohoo has strict budgets. After discussion about their limitations and requirements at the beginning of their account setup, each requirement follows this structure. Therefore our client always knows where they stand, and can often work out an approximate cost before they even send the work to us. They find this extremely helpful when they are at key budgeting stages.
Due to the high volumes and regularity of content, we are able to offer highly discounted rates to boohoo, without losing quality in service.
Turnaround / Delivery
At boohoo all of their operations are speedy – their customers do not want to wait for amazing fashion!
To match this requirement, our SLA included a turnaround promise of 24 hours for product content. From a product going on to the UK site, the translated product content would be on the international site within 24 hours. This was usually for hundreds of products at a time.
Results
“2016 Saw A 41% European Revenue Growth” - businesscloud.co.uk
“2017 Active Customer Numbers Were Up 29%” - bbc.co.uk
“We have worked with Talking Heads since 2013. They have provided us with market-focused translation services, working with us from before the launch of all of our international sites, right through to our extensive requirements as a successful international e-tailer. Talking Heads has processed thousands of product translations on a daily basis, returning them within 24 hours. They have also provided other services such as testing the checkout process with international customers and basic competitor research. They are always quick to respond, supportive in their suggestions, and understanding of our budget requirements.”
- Boohoo ecommerce Director
