Global expansion has never been easier for small to mid-sized brands. With ecommerce platforms like Shopify investing heavily in making it easy for merchants to create localized stores and experiences, and AI tools taking the grunt work out of translating and testing content, there are far fewer hoops for merchants to jump through to start selling in other countries.  

The challenge lies in how to do all of this efficiently. Yes, you can head into your product pages and hit an AI translation button, but what happens when you have thousands of SKUs and multiple storefronts, all in different languages? 

Thankfully, product information management (PIM) systems like Akeneo can turn this multi-language nightmare into a simple, streamlined process by automating cross-border content workflows. 

In this article, we’ll cover recommended tools and workflows, common pitfalls, and ROI metrics such as cost savings and reduced returns to ensure you can efficiently translate your ecommerce product catalogue and enter the global market easily. 

The Multi‑Language Challenge

Global market entry seems exciting until someone has to translate the catalogue. When you’re managing 10,000-plus SKUs across five, eight, or ten languages, manual localization becomes almost impossible. Every new product launch, attribute change, or seasonal update creates another chunk of copy to rewrite, review, and publish. 

That is a major problem when you realize that less than half of the world’s online population uses English, and 40% of consumers won’t buy from a site if the content isn’t in their native language. Poor localization can also create confusion after the sale, which matters in ecommerce where return rates are already high.

Thankfully, a PIM changes the equation by centralizing product data, clarifying which fields need localization, and creating an organized, automated translation workflow that helps teams move faster without compromising consistency across target markets.

Why PIM is Key to Global Success: How PIM centralizes product data for multilingual markets

If you’re serious about cross-border growth, PIM localization is the way to go. Without a PIM, most brands end up managing multilingual product content across spreadsheets, ecommerce backends, and supplier files. That setup is slow, inconsistent, and almost guaranteed to create errors. 

Akeneo positions its PIM system as a single source of truth for product information, providing teams with a centralized place to manage product data quality, completeness, and updates across channels.

This matters even more when multiple languages come into play. In Akeneo, teams can enable locales and use localizable attributes so one product record can hold different values for each market, including product names, descriptions, and other content fields, instead of creating duplicate records for every language. 

Akeneo also supports workflow-driven collaboration, proposals, and review steps, which makes it easier to request, validate, and approve changes before they go live. This means your now centralized product data leads to fewer translation gaps, faster launches, and a much lower chance of accidentally publishing content in the wrong language on the wrong storefront. 

Akeneo PIM’s Translation Capabilities: Akeneo’s built-in tools and ecosystem

Akeneo says its PIM has “all the tools to make translation and localization easy,” and that promise shows up in the day-to-day workflow: teams can manage localizable attributes inside the product record, compare values by locale, submit drafts for approval, and move content through review steps without bouncing between disconnected systems. 

Its workflow tools also support assigned tasks, approval paths, status tracking, and draft-based changes, which make multilingual enrichment much more controlled than using a spreadsheet or other tool.

Akeneo’s generative AI can translate product descriptions into more than 50 languages and has recently further expanded its AI translation capabilities. In its 2025 Spring Release, Akeneo introduced custom AI prompts that help teams guide the generation of translations and descriptions, improving accuracy, tone, and market relevance. 

…And when brands need more automation, the Akeneo App Store further extends the ecosystem. Apps such as DeepL and TransPerfect GlobalLink can automate translation requests for localizable text attributes and help sync approved localized content back into Akeneo with less manual work. 

This way, you can set everything up so that your product data enters your PIM from your external sources like your ERP, supplier databases, media servers, etc., gets enriched in the PIM, translated with the help of a connected app, and then exported to your ecommerce store, POS, marketplace pages, etc., all in the correct language with the correct localized information. 

This level of automated product description translation and ecommerce localization makes online store expansion into other markets, platforms, systems, retail locations, and countries much easier. 

PIM vs TMS vs MT vs Human: Comparing Translation Automation Options

Generally, when discussing multilingual ecommerce product descriptions and data, there are a few different options as far as translation processes go:

1. PIM Native Translation: This is Akeneo’s built-in PIM translation workflow. The benefit here is that it’s centralized and requires no additional software. You’ll still need manual reviews, however. 

2. Translation Management System (TMS) Integration: Connecting Akeneo to a TMS like GlobalLink adds additional quality control and is scalable for many languages. This adds additional costs and setup complexity but will generally improve translation quality for your target language(s). 

3. Machine Translation (MT) Engines: This is when you use generative AI for ecommerce translation (via an LLM API like ChatGPT, Google Translate, DeepL, etc.). The pros of this route are that translation for local markets is fast and cheap. Negatively, raw MT quality can sometimes be poor, with clunky copy that often requires post-editing for accuracy.  

4. Human Translation: Leveraging the help of professional linguists or agencies for translations. This will get you the highest level of nuance, great multi-language SEO, accurate brand tone, legal compliance, and more, but the trade-off is that it’s slow, expensive, and not really feasible for large volumes of content. 

There is no single “best” translation automation setup for every catalogue. The smarter approach is usually hybrid: use your PIM to centralize and govern product data, machine translation to create a fast first pass, and either a TMS or human review where quality, compliance, or brand voice really matter. 

This is why what’s known as machine translation post-editing (MTPE) has become such a practical middle ground. 

For most ecommerce brands, the automated translation workflow sweet spot is PIM-governed translation automation, with MT handling volume and humans stepping in where quality matters most.

Best Practices & Common Pitfalls: Avoiding Localization Landmines

The biggest localization mistakes are usually less technical and more strategic. Brands either rely too heavily on AI, rely too heavily on humans, or treat every SKU the same, which rarely ends well. 

When potential consumers lose trust in websites that are poorly translated or don’t properly handle the cultural nuances of their local language, and human-only workflows are painfully slow and expensive at scale, the better approach becomes a tiered one where high-impact content like bestselling product pages, landing pages, and conversion copy deserves deeper human review, while lower-priority catalogue content can move through AI or lighter review workflows.

Also, translated does not automatically mean discoverable. Localized keyword research still matters because multilingual SEO depends on using the terms real customers search in each market, not just translated English phrases. 

Conclusion

With the right mix of Akeneo PIM, AI translation, and smart workflow design, brands can build streamlined translation processes that scale, stay consistent, and get products to market faster. This results in less manual busywork, fewer content gaps, and a better customer experience in every market.

As an Akeneo agency partner, we at Blue Badger can help you get started with Akeneo PIM or support and maintain your existing PIM integration. Get in touch with us today to learn more.