It’s Almost Here: Bilingual Shopify Theme (Your Store In Two Languages)

Update: The Bilingual Theme is Now Available

As many of you know, we’ve been squirreling away for months on the biggest project we’ve ever done:  creating a way for business owners and entrepreneurs to have two languages in their store.  Specifically, for Shopify (that’s what we do).

We sent an email to our exclusive VIP list a few days ago, and are now making a fuss in public:  this coming Monday (US EST), the theme will be released via ShopifyNinjas.com.
Update: The Bilingual Theme is Now Available here.

Note: If you’re not interested in the theme – no problem at all.  We’ll be back with more helpful insider Shopify tips and tricks very soon. If you are, read on.

Why Care About Having Two Languages In An E-commerce Store?

Many people running E-commerce websites want a way to increase their market, reach new customers, and make more sales.  There are fewer fast ways to instantly increase your potential market than by adding a whole nother language to your website.  With the addition of Spanish, for example, there are another 180 million potential customers.  More languages mean more people can understand your content, read about, and potentially buy, your products.

We have seen hundreds and hundreds of comments on the web, all saying the same thing:

How do I build a bilingual store?  Why isn’t this supported on Shopify now?

We’re language geeks here at Shopify Ninjas.  And we wanted to do something about this clear demand, by creating a system to easily have two languages on a Shopify store – without having to pay $10,000+ for a custom development.

Not sure what a Theme is?  A theme is a template you can use on your store.  Because Shopify doesn’t natively support having two languages, the only options until now have been to pursue an expensive custom development, or use an add-on which does not provide a good user experience (in our opinion, at least.  We speak 7 languages among the team).  In our theme, you can specify all the translated text you’d need on the store, and the theme will manage which language gets displayed, based on user selection.

In other words:  clicking a button “English” will show your English content.  “French” button shows French.

Video:  The Bilingual Theme

Here’s a sneak peek, including some part screenshots of the demo store

Note:  If you’re reading this in your email, you won’t be able to see the video.  Click here to view it.

What Will Be Released, Exactly?

We’ll be releasing the theme as an instant download from this website.  We’ll also have another option: we’ll create a store for you, take care of all the admin behind setting up an account, installing the theme and setting it up – and give you the password to your very own Bilingual Shop.  In under 48 hours.

Features: What kind of stuff can you do with the theme?

There’ll be a lot that can be done with the theme.  It’ll all be visible on the demo store so you can try it out.  Here’s a brief overview:

• Bilingual Support: Manage your store’s products, pages, menus, everything, in two languages;
• Fully responsive: Works with Smart Phones, Tablets, Laptops, and Desktops;
• Easy to customize: Theme Settings which allow you to easily change things like fonts, colors, layout, and add your own logo in a jiffy;
• Great documentation to make sure you can get up and running quickly;
• Full-suite demo store so you can see it in action and test everything out
• A testimonial showcase area to show off all the good things your clients have said about you

We’re really excited to get it out into the world and can’t wait to hear what you think.  We’re confident it’s going to change businesses, open up new opportunities, and be a lot of fun, too.

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Thank you for checking out our Shopify Insider Blog @ Blackbelt Commerce. Please make sure to check out our portfolio. We also have some top blog recommendations for you to check out; Three Things We’ve Learned So Far Building a Shopify Theme,  Mayor upgrade: bilingual theme, 5 beautiful bilingual shopify stores, Shopify stories: business owners in two languages, and Shortcodes For Shopify. Keep a lookout for new blog posts.

Questions?  Post them in the comments below.