Regional languages enter the world of e-commerce
However, e-commerce companies are far behind in this race, only a few companies give you the freedom to shop in your language. Both OLX and Quikr have Hindi websites. Quikr supports seven Indian languages. But transactions cannot be done in regional languages on these sites and the listing of items is also not in regional languages.
Although last year some media reports claimed that Flipkart, Snapdeal and Jabong will soon launch sites in regional languages. But the reality as of today is that only Snapdeal has been successful in this direction.
In November last year, MakeMyTrip also launched a Hindi website for its customers. Today, despite many difficulties, the company is in a position to provide support in other regional languages besides Hindi.
MakeMyTrip’s mobile product head Pranav Bhasin said that the website in regional languages is a strategic move of the company. He said, “Flight booking in Hindi was just a beginning. We are going to start railway booking in many languages in the coming days. Which includes Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati and Malayalam. “
Nearly six months after launching the Hindi site, the company says the project has not been easy. Bhasin said, “When the project started, the concept seemed very easy. We have all the technology available. We just need to change the text. But later we realized that doing the right translation is very difficult. And this market is completely different and so are the customers.” According to Bhasin, payment has sometimes been a problem. To overcome this, MakeMyTrip is studying the pros and cons of cash on delivery for railway tickets.
It has been almost a year since Snapdeal launched its Hindi website. The company claims that it has received positive feedback from customers. The company’s Senior Vice President (Product Development) Amit Khanna believes that customers prefer their regional language over English.
He said, “In the Indian context, people like to read in regional languages.” However, he also gave this important information that after starting work in Hindi, the company has not added any new customers but it is providing better facilities to the old ones.
Let us tell you that as far as payment of money is concerned, the bank’s pages are in English. On this, Amit Khanna says that this is not a reason to worry, the format of these pages is very standard and most of the customers are already aware of it. If you understand a little English then you can easily work on this page.
E-commerce needs real time translation
E-commerce companies depend on third parties for Hindi content. Travel sites like MakeMyTrip have to depend on their partners for information. Therefore, sometimes a situation arises when the company does not get Hindi content. Media companies get the content translated according to their needs, but the main requirement of an e-commerce company is live translation.
Snapdeal said that in the initial phase, there were very few standard translation solutions. However, the company developed the technology as per the requirements.
MakeMyTrip also had to grapple with this problem. As a result, the company developed its own translation technology. This technology is being continuously improved through the feedback and behavior of the users. Apart from this, flat translation was also not in the interest of the customers. Therefore, the company gave more preference to colloquial language and Hinglish words.
Have you been in a hurry?
However, experts believe that such a huge investment for such a small customer base does not seem to be a wise deal. That too knowing that the situation is going to remain the same in the coming days.
Amit Khanna said, “The demand for Indian languages is not going to match that of English in the coming days.” But he does not think that Snapdeal did not invest in the Hindi field before time. According to him, the content was available in the market for a long time and the company wanted to invest in this direction and see its results.
MakeMyTrip’s Pranav Bhasin also thinks the same. He believes that it is still a long way before regional languages become popular on the internet. Right now, customers from tier 2 and tier 3 cities are showing a good inclination towards Hindi. And the most important thing is that the company has not even invested in marketing this product. He hopes that as soon as 4G networks are introduced, the company will get more customers from these cities.
