Case Study: Lionbridge Global Retail Localization for Market Expansion

Over the past 25 years, our lifestyle apparel customer has expanded to employ tens of thousands of people, opened hundreds of brick-and-mortar stores across North America, Europe, and APAC, and developed a robust global online presence. Now a household name, the retailer is synonymous with luxury.

Building upon an existing partnership with Lionbridge — during which we translated various marketing materials — the company initiated an 18-month language services project. It set out to connect with and enhance its relationship with its global customers in dozens of markets.

The Challenge

The retailer was growing rapidly, targeting 35 markets. However, its global retail localization efforts did not meet its urgent need for translated content. This deficiency hindered the company from establishing strong customer bases in its desired markets.

At the root of the customer’s problem:

• Difficulty for global employees to communicate with one another.

• A decentralized network of Language Service Providers (LSPs) that increased the company’s administrative workload and costs.

• The need for translation in all its target languages simultaneously.

• A laborious review process that created inefficiencies during localization.

The Solution

Lionbridge worked closely with the retailer to understand its needs, define the solution’s scope, identify the roles and responsibilities of those working on the engagement, and establish agreed-upon success criteria.

To best meet the customer’s needs, Lionbridge provided two on-site translators to work directly with the retailer’s internal team and established a multidisciplinary team comprised of about 25 Lionbridge personnel, including program managers, project managers, language team leads, technical services leads, engineers, and over 200 external translators to handle global retail localization. Local project managers communicated directly with local requesters, while localization experts in China coordinated overall project management initiatives.

Language services included:

• On-site services with translators specializing in traditional Chinese-Taiwan and traditional Chinese-Hong Kong.

• Translation and localization of employee communications, website updates, and product information in various formats, including PowerPoint, Excel, InDesign, Figma, Adobe FrameMaker, and Photoshop Document.

• Video and audio translation, including transcription, onscreen texts, and subtitling.

• eLearning and training localization.

• Localization testing services.

• Centralized project production.

• Language Quality Assurance (LQA) services quarterly to assess translation samples produced by the various language providers and to help the customer evaluate additional candidates.

• Other linguistic testing of websites, transcreation requests, and cultural checks.

To ensure a smooth engagement, Lionbridge prioritized strong communications, meeting biweekly with the customer.

The Results

Our customer efficiently distributed its localized content to the 35 new and emerging markets it targeted while reducing its localization costs by 25 percent.

The cost savings enabled our customer to localize more content within the same budget and allocate the remaining funds to additional localization initiatives.

Our services bolstered local marketing campaigns and store operations. Requestors reported high satisfaction with the services, highlighting an enhanced ability to engage their audiences.

Get in touch

Are you a global retailer that wants to expand? We’re ready to help.