Implementing a Bilingual Online Presence for Marine Supply Company
Where We Started
Our client, a Canadian marine supply retailer, served customers across the country, where a significant share of ecommerce shoppers prefer to browse and buy in French. Without a bilingual site, the brand was limiting its reach to English-speaking customers, missing a substantial segment of Canadian shoppers who prefer to browse and buy in French.
The opportunity was to remove that language barrier and create a shopping experience that felt native to customers across Canada’s French-speaking boating communities, particularly in Quebec and the Maritimes.
Achieving that meant going beyond machine translation. Marine products use specialized terminology, and the brand’s voice needed to feel native in both languages rather than translated word for word. Canadian French also has its own linguistic and cultural nuances, which needed to be reflected consistently throughout the website.
The Turning Point
Rather than relying solely on automated translation, every page was professionally translated and reviewed by a native French Canadian translator to ensure the tone, terminology, and messaging felt natural to French-speaking customers. The result was more than an accurate translation. It was a brand experience that felt authentic and consistent in both languages.
Alongside translation, we implemented multilingual SEO best practices so that both language versions of the site could be discovered and indexed properly, giving French language pages the same visibility opportunity as their English counterparts rather than treating French as an afterthought.
Our Approach
Weglot Integration
Complete Site Translation
French Canadian Localization
Seamless Language Switching
The Outcome
Preservation Marine now operates a fully bilingual Shopify store that delivers a consistent shopping experience in both English and French across every stage of the customer journey. Rather than treating French as an add-on, the business now provides an experience that feels native to customers in both languages.
For a Canadian marine retailer, this creates a stronger foundation for reaching French-speaking boating communities in Quebec and the Maritimes while supporting long-term growth in an underserved segment of the market.