Sell in more than one language

A store in Turkey that ships to Germany, Russia or the Gulf needs pages in the customer's language. Kambloo ships with translation packs for Turkish, English, German, Russian and Arabic, including full right-to-left layout for Arabic, and you can add any other language. This lesson explains what is automatic and what you translate.

Adding a language#

In your store settings, add the languages you want to sell in and choose a default. The default language has no prefix in the URL. Every other language gets a prefix: /en/, /de/, /ru/, /ar/.

The storefront text that belongs to the theme, such as "Add to cart" and section headings, is already translated in official themes for the five packaged languages. For other languages you provide those strings.

Your admin panel is available in Turkish and English. Adding storefront languages does not change the admin.

What you translate#

Content is translated field by field in the same forms you already use. The translatable fields are:

• product name, short description and description,
• option names and values, such as "Color" and "Red",
• attribute values in the specification table,
• FAQ questions and answers,
• category and brand names and descriptions,
• static page titles and bodies,
• the title and meta description in the SEO tab.

Start with your top products and main categories, then the shipping, returns and about pages. A half-translated product is better than none: any untranslated field falls back to your default language.

What stays the same#

The URL slug is not translated. /urun/deri-bot-siyah in Turkish is /en/urun/deri-bot-siyah in English. This is a deliberate choice. One slug per product means one set of redirects when you rename, one sitemap entry with language alternates, and no chance of a translated slug pointing to the wrong product.

Prices, dates and numbers are formatted per language automatically. If you also enable the multi-currency module, the language switcher and currency switcher render together.

The language switcher#

The header shows a switcher listing your active languages by their own names: Türkçe, English, Deutsch, Русский, العربية. Choosing one takes the visitor to the same page in that language and remembers the choice. Visitors arriving for the first time are routed by the URL prefix, then by a remembered choice, then by their browser language if it matches one of yours, then by your default.

hreflang, handled for you#

Search engines need to know that the Turkish and German versions of a page are the same product. That is what hreflang tags do, and they are a frequent source of mistakes on hand-built sites. Kambloo writes them for you with two rules that matter:

• A language is listed only when the translation actually exists. Announcing an empty translation sends the wrong signal.
• Every page lists itself, all existing alternatives, and an x-default pointing to your default language.

The same alternates are written into your sitemap, so search engines get the signal twice, consistently.

Arabic and right-to-left#

When Arabic is active, pages render right-to-left automatically. Themes are built with direction-neutral layout rules, so the whole page mirrors correctly: menus, product galleries, carousels and forms. Icons that indicate direction, such as arrows, flip; icons that do not, such as the cart, stay put. Fonts fall back to an Arabic-capable face, and letter spacing is disabled for Arabic text.

The Arabic pages use the same URL structure and the same SEO rules as every other language. Nothing extra is needed. If you target specific countries, regional variants such as ar-SA can be added later.

Payments and shipping abroad#

Language is only part of selling abroad. Card payments from customers outside Turkey use Stripe, which is available as a free adapter; iyzico and PayTR serve domestic cards. Shipping abroad needs a carrier and rates for the destination. Check both before you advertise a language.

Common mistakes#

• Translating slugs by hand in the name field, which does nothing and confuses customers.
• Adding five languages and translating nothing, so visitors see a Turkish store with a German menu.
• Machine-translating legal pages without review. Have a native speaker check shipping and return terms.
• Forgetting the SEO title and description per language.
• Enabling a language before you can accept payment and ship to that market.

Apply this in your store: add one language, translate your top five products and main categories, and open the switcher on a product page to see the result.