Managing multilingual product content with Akeneo. Can it help you sell more abroad?

Data shows that 9 out of 10 internet users prefer websites in their own language, and many hesitate to make purchases from brands that aren’t localized. True localization means tailoring every piece of product information, not just translating titles and descriptions. It also includes:

• converting measurement families,
• adjusting currencies and units,
• meeting local regulatory standards,
• adapting images or manuals to match specific markets and applying the right formats.

Companies that neglect this step risk losing customers to competitors who communicate effectively.

Multilingual and localized content should be viewed as an integral part of the overall product experience, rather than merely a sales tool. Shoppers need clear information, especially when ordering from abroad. And because 73% of customers rely on product details to decide, inadequate or poorly translated pages immediately weaken that trust. Incorrect or misleading product details can also trigger costly returns and negative reviews. In the end, weak localization doesn’t only hurt conversions. It causes direct financial loss and erodes your brand’s reliability.

In reality, managing a product catalog for multiple locales is complex and tedious. This article explains how Akeneo PIM brings order to multilingual product data, and how that order translates into faster listings, fewer content errors, and better conversion – whether you sell through your own sites, distributors, or global marketplaces (Amazon, Alibaba, and regional players).

From local to worldwide!

5 challenges of managing multilingual product information

Expanding your business to global markets is a huge opportunity, but it comes with an equally huge challenge: delivering high-quality product content in multiple languages.

Names, specifications, packaging, certificates, visuals, manuals, keywords – all multiplied by languages, local laws, and channel demands. Suddenly, the act of publishing a product becomes a drawn-out, error-prone effort.

Many manufacturers and distributors start out using makeshift solutions like countless spreadsheets or manual copy-paste workflows in order to handle translations and local data.

This quickly leads to many pain points:

1) Disjointed, scattered data

• Separate spreadsheets per country, per channel, per partner.
• Conflicting specs (weight 10 kg vs 10.5 kg), duplicate SKUs, mismatched images.
• No single place to check which locale is “ready to publish”.

2) Translation bottlenecks

• Copy-paste loops: you enter product information into files by hand, email back and forth with translation agencies, lose attachments.
• No visibility of what’s missing. Launch waits for “the last translation round”.
• Time-consuming, manual information updates for every new locale. Unclear ownership.

3) Out-of-sync updates

• Some regions display outdated information (packaging changes in FR; IT site still shows old dimensions).
• Features improved and certifications updated on the B2B portal; the marketplace listing lags behind. Without a centralized system, it’s easy to miss one channel.
• PDFs and datasheets don’t match the web.

4) Quality control issues

• Typos, wrong units (inches here, centimeters there).
• Untranslated phrases, missing safety notes in certain languages.

5) Marketplace compliance headaches

• Auto-rejections for missing required attributes, non-compliant titles, invalid image resolution/size, or forbidden claims.
• Each marketplace or retailer has its own attribute dictionary, limits, and taxonomy. Manually tailoring your data to each channel (and keeping up with frequent changes in those requirements) can feel like a full-time job in itself.
   

Business impact:

• Slow international time-to-market, lost sales windows, launches slip by weeks.
• High reworks.
• Compliance risk, lost orders, higher return rates, more support tickets (“product not as described”).
• Collaboration with partners and marketplaces becomes strained, diverting focus from scaling to constant problem-solving.

For many businesses, the burden of handling multilingual content becomes the very reason they delay expansion or settle for substandard content that limits their success.

How Akeneo helps manage multilingual content & global channels

Given these challenges, it’s clear you need a better approach. Product Information Management (PIM) provides exactly that. A PIM system is essentially a centralized hub for organizing, enriching, and distributing all your product data across channels and markets.

It’s built around well-defined product models and structured templates. Instead of having product information siloed by language or channel, you store one master record per product with all the relevant attributes, and then localize and syndicate that data wherever it needs to go.

This keeps common information (like product IDs, core specs) uniform, while allowing differences where appropriate (different descriptions or regulatory info per country).

Find out what kinds of product data the PIM contains and where that data is sourced from.

By centralizing product info in a single repository, a PIM software ensures consistency and eliminates discrepancies that inevitably arise when using multiple files or systems.

Now, let’s talk specifically about Akeneo, one of the leading platforms known for its strength in product data localization and syndication. It provides a toolkit to handle multilingual content with ease:

User-friendly, business-oriented interface

Akeneo is designed for business users (like product managers, marketers, translators) to input, enrich, and extract product data. This matters because everyone from the central team to regional offices can quickly learn to use the system and collaborate.

A single source of truth is maintained, where users can organize a comprehensive catalog including all attributes, descriptions, images, etc., in each language.

Localized data adaptation and powerful enrichment

The platform enables you to:

• add rich product information and multiple translations for each attribute as needed,
• maintain localized versions of product descriptions, marketing text for each market (you can define which attributes are translatable vs. global), and assign responsibilities per country, region, or catalog (so local teams handle their own content without impacting other markets),
• manage locale-specific assets (you can have different product images for certain countries or regions, all while keeping them unified under the same product record),
• handle units, currencies, and regional formats or automatically convert measurements and other values based on locale rules (no more worrying if a French customer will see the length in centimeters or if the US site shows dollars – Akeneo takes care of it),*
• switch between locales to see what data is present or missing.

* You can rely on automatic conversions by locale or override them at any level with custom exceptions: like showing a French customer pounds instead of centimeters.

Integration with new channels and platforms

One of the biggest advantages of Akeneo PIM for distributors and manufacturing companies is how it connects with your sales channels (including webshops, partner portals, printed catalogs, and global marketplaces), and feeds data continuously.

This allows real-time or frequent synchronization of product info to your websites and marketplaces, so customers always see accurate, up-to-date information.

Even better, it can ingest each channel’s specific schema and formatting: you connect your account to Akeneo, and it will fetch the list of required and optional attributes for that site. No guesswork – the PIM guides you to fill in all the required fields.

This way, you always know what data you need to provide for, say, an eBay listing in Japan versus a Google Shopping feed in France.

Once the data is mapped and ready, automation takes over to publish or export the listings, and it keeps them updated whenever you make changes.

Scalability and maintenance

PIM Akeneo is built to handle large product catalogs and high volumes of updates, which is critical when you’re operating across many channels.

It’s far easier to introduce a new language or channel when you have a structured system than if you have dozens of spreadsheets to clone or update.

Collaboration and governance

Advanced PIM systems allow role-based access, so you might split ownership by locale. Akeneo PIM, for example, offers granular rights management to let external translators contribute safely (input translations directly into the system) without exposing everything.

Thanks to workflows, you can route tasks to in-house teams or agencies, and see who changed what, where.

It also provides validation gates to enforce quality: you can require that a supervisor approves any translated content before it’s published, ensuring accuracy of localized attributes and eliminating costly errors in your catalogs.

Your team gets a repeatable, governed process.

Data quality and completeness checks

Akeneo comes with tools to help you monitor the completeness of product information per locale. For example:

• You can set rules for what constitutes a “complete” product in each market (must have specs, regulatory tags, two images, and warranty info in the local language).
• The software gives you dashboards or scores so you can instantly see if a product is 100% ready in English but only 75% ready in Spanish. This is helpful to prioritize work and avoid publishing incomplete content.

What “good” looks like

One trusted product record per SKU, with:

• a clean data model (attributes, families, variants),
• locales for each language/country,
• clear readiness rules (what “ready for sale” means per locale & channel),
• workflows and ownership (who enriches, who translates, who approves),
• automated exports/syndication to web, marketplaces, partners.

Akeneo PIM gives you this structure out of the box.

In essence, Akeneo brings order to the chaos of multilingual product data. It acts as an ecosystem for your product content, connecting all the pieces (descriptions, specs, images, translations, etc.) in one organized process.

Can Akeneo PIM actually boost your cross-border sales?

Yes: indirectly and directly.

Directly through connectors and well-maintained templates that increase acceptance rates, streamline ongoing updates, and shorten the time needed to enter new locales.

Indirectly by raising data quality: better findability, higher add-to-cart rates, and fewer post-purchase issues across borders. Rich, clean, and consistent content fuels SEO in each language.

Typical benefits businesses see after implementing Akeneo for multilingual expansion:

Faster expansion and listings

With the efficiencies gained (stable content operations, clear ownership, fewer handoffs), you can roll out products to new country sites and marketplaces much faster than before. Many companies are still struggling with the basics of managing product content. You operate with a level of agility that competitors tied up in spreadsheets can’t match.

Access to new audiences

Translating into just the top 3 internet languages (English, Spanish, Chinese) gives you access to over half of the world’s online population. And every additional language adds more potential buyers. Akeneo PIM enables this breadth without multiplying your workload linearly.

Better customer experience = higher conversions

When buyers find the details they need (in their own language, with correct units, etc.), they hit “Add to cart” more often. On marketplaces, better content also feeds the algorithms that rank products, meaning your items show up higher and get more visibility.

Reduced content-related tickets and returns

We saw how misinformation causes returns. Akeneo ensures accuracy and completeness. Fewer returns not only protect your margins (returns are costly!), but also indicate happier customers who feel the product they bought was accurately represented and compliant.

Competitive advantage

In B2B sectors, especially, this operational excellence is a differentiator – you become the partner or supplier who’s easy to work with across borders, because your product data is always reliable and ready to go.

There are real examples of companies that have transformed their business by leveraging PIM for global growth. Akeneo has reported cases where businesses boosted sales by 400% after implementing a PIM solution and expanding their product reach. While numbers will vary for each scenario, the common thread is that better product information directly translates to better sales performance. When you can launch products faster, deliver a superior product experience, and meet customers in any market with the information they need, the sales naturally follow.

Check out the solutions that allow your business to run smoothly across several markets.

Ready to ride global?

Don’t let product information become a hidden blocker. When you have high-quality, localized product information distributed via a PIM, you create the conditions to improve sales performance internationally.

At Tandemite, we position ourselves not just as software providers but as strategic partners in your product data journey. We have deep experience helping manufacturers and distributors organize their product data, automate processes, and build an ecosystem that drives competitive advantage in global sales.

We stay by your side through each step: from identifying your data challenges to configuring PIM Akeneo to fit your needs, integrating it with your channels, and training your team in simple business language.

If you want a partner who rides in tandem – steady, practical, and focused on measurable sales outcomes – let’s talk.