Localization

Focus
Startup localization and the
eCommerce
hosting landscape
Ben Whittacker-Cook
Ben Whittacker-Cook is a creative and communications writer
for Straker Translations, a cloud-enabled translation services
provider with production centers in Auckland, Barcelona
and Denver, and further support offices around the world.
As more third party eCommerce providers join
the market to assist online retailers, what is the
best business path for startup retailers looking to
sell their products and services cross border?
We have to go back to 1995 to map the birth of eCommerce.
The world of technology wasn’t exactly rocking that
year. Interesting, but not rocking. The unmanned Galileo
spacecraft arrived at Jupiter, JavaScript came into being, and
a new disc storage media format called DVD was unveiled.
However, 1995 was a monumental year for internet retail,
thanks to the ambitions of two entirely unconnected entrepreneurs.
Seattle resident Jeff Bezos created an online bookstore
called Amazon in July of that year. Just two months
later and around 840 miles away, Pierre Omidyar founded
the auction website eBay from his San Jose living room.
Both companies turn 21 this year, but they came of age
long ago. Now two of the most recognizable brands on the
planet, Amazon and eBay have become templates for how
eCommerce businesses should operate, as well as inspiring
a generation of virtual tycoons in the process.
Amazon is the leading online retailer in the United
States with more than $105 billion in net sales in 2015. It
has 300 million active customer accounts worldwide and
more than a quarter of a million employees.
Despite eBay’s longevity and impressive market share
in the consumer-to-consumer sector, it is still one of the
world’s fastest growing internet businesses. Its annual net
revenue doubled between 2008 and 2013, and that figure
currently stands at $18 million. eBay has 25 million sellers
listing more than 800 million auction items across more
than 30 different international localized sites.
Bezos once said: “We've had three big ideas at Amazon
that we've stuck with for 18 years, and they're the reason
we're successful: Put the customer first. Invent. And be
patient.”
Explains Omidyar: “People were doing business with
one another through the internet already, through bulletin
boards. But on the web, we could make it interactive, we
could create an auction, we could create a real marketplace.
And that's really what triggered my imagination... and that's
what I did.”
42 April/May 2016