#163 Amazon’s Stumble in Sweden
A warning at the beginning: This post includes language that some may find offensive. And it might hold some surprises. The first surprise may be that Amazon only recently – during the second half of 2020 – opened a national site in Sweden. In fact, the first one in Europe’s Nordic countries. The second surprise is that a company as professional as Amazon – a company that has all the resources at its disposal that others can only wish for – makes mistakes when entering a new country that are embarrassing and could have easily been avoided. So, what happened? After having had country-specific sites in several European countries, Amazon had decided to get more serious about Sweden, Europe’s 10th largest economy by GDP. Entering the market required significant investments in local logistics infrastructure and, of course, the launch of a dedicated site, Amazon.se – Amazon’s 17th local portal worldwide. The new site allows Swedes to stop ordering from other European Amazon stores and order locally, instead. Naturally, new products had to be added, and translations into Swedish were necessary. Unfortunately, the launch didn’t go as smoothly as planned thanks to a number of glaring mistranslations. And this is where the “R” rated section of this post begins.
To cite a few examples, products that included rapeseed flower were translated into Swedish as “våldtäktsblomma”, using the Swedish word for rape (instead of “rapeseed”); the descriptions of greeting cards and t-shirts with the pictures of a rooster were translated into the Swedish “massiv kuk”, slang words referring to oversized male genitalia; an item branded as “Kitty Cat Hair Brush” became “Fittig katt vit hårborste” (“Vagina Cat”), and another item was listed as “child sex attack t-shirt”; a collection of World War II-era Russian infantry figurines was labeled “Russian Toddlers”, frying pans were referred to as items for women, and a silicone baking mold was described as “suitable for chocolate, feces, goose water, and bread”. In addition to these embarrassing translation mistakes, the site also offered a shower curtain with swastika symbols and – to top it all off – Amazon proudly displayed the Argentinian flag instead of Sweden’s on the country selector.
Amazon blames it all on on automatic translations powered by artificial intelligence. As at the British newspaper The Guardian reported, Amazon thanked its customers for pointing out the mistakes and explained that it was only “day one” for Amazon in Sweden. Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is known not to be one who is very forgiving of mistakes and poor performance, so it’s certain that these errors will be fixed soon (and that someone’s head will roll). The memory of the botched start in Sweden will live forever, though.
November 4, 2020 @ 11:15 pm
Great post! It is humbling that a company as big, and as successful, as Amazon can make a mistake like this. It should be a cautionary tale for other companies who are looking to move into international markets they are unfamiliar with. I am not suspired that the AI had issues translating the names of all the products on the site correctly because that is a tough thing to ask of AI. However, a company like Amazon has the capital in place to hire a team that could double check the AI translations on the site before it’s launch. In my opinion they should have put together a Swedish team who could use AI to find all the inappropriate words on the site and evaluate whether they belong. Though this sounds like a lengthy process, Amazon has the capital for the AI and the capital to hire a large enough workforce who could tackle this problem in a short period of time.
January 12, 2021 @ 4:35 pm
Thanks for sharing Amazon’s “lost-in-translation” case in Sweden!
Most of the mistranslated words shown in the post account to 2 or more meanings in just one word, which is also called a homonym-word. I have personally experienced this kind of translation errors many times when working or travelling internationally. In my opinion, these lost-in-translation cases are not only common for Sweden, but also for the rest of the world. For me personally, it is a little bit entertaining that these kind of translation mistakes also happen to the online giant Amazon.
I would have bet that Amazon is having some of the best AI – algorithms when it comes to translation, because the company is already operating globally for a long time. Now I wonder if there are more mistakes like this and only Sweden noticed because of the offensive content.
In summary, the post points out that for global business processes it should not be solely relied on computer assisted translation, but also on experts.
January 17, 2021 @ 11:09 pm
There is no doubt in my mind that AI has benefits that have enriched the lives of customers and of businesses alike, however, this is a great example that demonstrates that AI is still a work in progress (at least, in the area of linguistics) and that companies should be cautionary on how and to what extent they should use AI – especially with regards to ‘delicate’ topics.
It also highlights that market entry is not only about high-level aspects such as benefits, costs, and management, but also about ‘simpler’ things like speaking the language of the customer (literally, in this case) and getting cultural differences right.
Of course, international expansions are highly complex and require a lot of preparation, however, managing to localize content and product descriptions is the least a big company like Amazon could do when entering a new market and reaching out to new customers – after all, they are certainly not short of money to hire some external translators and could thereby avoid selling “Russian toddlers” or “Vagina cats” on their marketplace.
January 24, 2021 @ 9:28 pm
Even though in Austria it is now almost declared a taboo to order from Amazon (“they do not pay ANY taxes in Austria”), I must openly admit that I still order there. Unfortunately, hardly any other online retailer can keep up with Amazon in terms of service, reliability and speed.
I also often smile about the really bad translations of many German product descriptions when shopping on amazon.at. The worse the translation (and be it only small spelling mistakes), the less I am willing to buy the described product. If it is high-priced, I resist buying it at all because in my perception the bad translation might go hand in hand with inferior quality or even with fake products. In this respect, I think it’s crucial that sellers who want to increase sales and raise brand reputation put a lot of effort in a high quality translation of their offered products in order to offer perfect service to their potential customers.
It will be exciting to see how successful Amazon will perform in Sweden – after all, the market entry there took place very late, only 20 years after Amazon has started in Germany for example. Furthermore, the e-commerce trade in Sweden has been digitally well positioned for years. Online shopping accounts for 15 percent of total trade in Sweden, including groceries (and these numbers are from pre-pandemic times). There are around 15,000 internet retailers in the country of only ten million inhabitants!
January 26, 2021 @ 8:36 pm
Interesting story of a yet extraordinary company. In my opinion, this example clearly shows that sheer size of a corporation can also be a burden when entering a new market. With 150 million products in 30 categories the choice to use artificial intelligence for translations is glaringly obvious. Especially considering Amazon’s involvement in these new computational areas. Nevertheless, a local team of native speakers could have anticipated the most critical errors and supported the translation with artificial intelligence.
In today’s globalized world, most of us are familiar with these types of spelling mishaps, in my experience particularly with Asian and Chinese vendors. But since technology advances in an everlasting increasing pace, I am confident that we will see these errors less and less in the future. Until then, (large) organizations are well advised to take advantage of a local team and linguistically skilled people to support a smooth foreign expansion without accidental worldwide amusement.
January 31, 2021 @ 4:52 pm
Thank you for sharing this interesting case with us!
It is astonishing that Amazon, a well-established and globally experienced company with tremendous resources, can make mistakes like that when entering a new country. Clearly, AI is a helpful tool for translating the immense amount of products Amazon is selling online, but AI is still a work to progress. However, it is not possible to check the translation of each product precisely by an expert, but maybe a combination of AI with human workforce to detect such wrong mistakes would be a good idea.
In my opinion, the translation problem could be somehow more understandable as Amazon is selling millions of products and technology is not fully developed, but what really surprises me is that Amazon used the wrong country flag – the Argentinean flag instead of the Swedish one. How can something like that not be seen/checked before going live? Amazon has many resources, money and workforce wise, and it is not the first time that they are entering a new market. Before doing so, it is crucial that also the product is ready for the new market in order to achieve success.
February 23, 2021 @ 5:28 pm
I can’t get my head around how Amazon, a company with (nearly) unlimited resources and a lot of experience in entering new markets, was able to mess this up. Using some translation software is one thing, and quite understandable when building an online-shopping portal like Amazon’s in a new language, but that is no excuse for such mistakes.
Also, the use of software to translate product labels and specifications surely is nothing new, especially for Amazon. From July 2017 until the end of 2020, 6 dedicated Amazon websites have been launched, five of which don’t use the English language.
At least the company handled this situation with dignity, thanking its customers for pointing out the mistakes and asking them to keep reporting them so Amazon can change the labels. Alas, the (reputational) damage is done, and it remains to be seen how well and how quickly Amazon will recover from disaster in Sweden.
February 24, 2021 @ 12:34 pm
I am puzzled by the great contradiction in this story from Amazon. Swedes could have ordered on Amazon before but were honored with a local portal, tailor-made for their market. What then happened, seemed like a mockery to Swedish customers, instead of this nice concession.
What I assume happened here: Amazon did a great job in the market entry preparation, like setting up the infrastructure for a fast local delivery service or adding valuable Swedish articles. Then, something we all know happened. The last delicate steps before completion. Let me give an example: You can put great effort in a project, and you may have created the best thought out and sophisticated presentation, and by some unfortunate circumstances, you oversee a typo on the first slide. People will be aware of that small typo and undervalue your entire work. You can be 99% perfect, but a little mistake in the wrong place messes it all up. There is an old rule saying, that even if everything is crap, the names must be spelled correctly. I think that is what happened here with the wrong flag, a minor mistake at the wrong place – where everyone is aware of it – leads to doubts about the entire work.
Still, I am very confident that Amazon will succeed in the Swedish market and look back at it as an occasion for some initial marketing.
April 7, 2021 @ 1:35 am
When companies venture internationally, they must plan their market entry carefully for the best chance at success in each territory. In fact, it has been shown that systematic firms achieve better performance, even if that firm happens to be born global, an established multinational, or a first-timer. The steps prior to international market entry generally include assessing corporate readiness, product readiness, target market selection, and entry mode choice. Amazon’s venture into Sweden was quite the opposite of a carefully planned execution as they failed to successfully meet the second step of market entry, product readiness.
In this case, the product that was not ready was Amazon’s poorly translated Swedish website titles that were created using artificial intelligence and contained many inappropriate and offensive language mistakes. Additionally, the Swedish flag which was supposed to show at the top of the website in the country selector, showed the Argentinian flag instead. These embarrassing mistranslations and images on the new country-specific Swedish Amazon website were fixed after the fact when customers pointed them out to company affiliates, but this could have been avoided altogether if the corporation had adapted better to ensure that the local language was communicated properly during their planning stages.
June 19, 2021 @ 4:09 pm
Thank you for sharing this interesting story! It is quite surprising to hear that a company as experienced and successful as Amazon made mistakes like this when entering a new market.
In my opinion this case shows that even international giants must plan their market entry carefully and it seems Amazon’s venture into Sweden was quite the opposite of a strategic entry. However, I am not very suspired that the AI had issues translating the names of all the Swedish products correctly. We all probably have seen many spelling mistakes on the internet. Altough, these embarrassing mistranslations and images on the new website could have been avoided if for instance a local team of native speakers would had supported the translation. After all we still can’t trust the machines blindly and should always double-check. I am sure the online giant Amazon has the resources to hire a Swedish team that could check the AI translations before going online to avoid these embarrassing mistakes for all the future market entries.
July 10, 2021 @ 5:01 pm
It is surprising, that even a big company like Amazon has problems entering a new market. You should assume that Amazon did their market research – which they probably did – but after entering several markets they should have also known that language is an important part.
To translate a website with so many products it is obvious to use AI, but the transla-tion should always be checked. A mistake like this will not be forgotten fast especially in the concerning country and if something like this will happen again the reputation of Amazon will slowly decrease. Not to think of what would have happened if this were a more conservative country.
The fast reaction to this mistake was important but Amazon should not perform like that again in Sweden. And for the next time they should check if there is offensive language before they go live.
July 11, 2021 @ 5:47 pm
What a good example, that machine-translation can hardly ever completely replace human translators!
Machines cannot choose the right words, when they have two meanings. Machines do not have emotions and therefore can only translate word by word, which more often than not results in very strange wordings. You would have thought, Amazon does not make mistakes like this, mistakes you would expect from newbies in international business.
The post shows, that translation is not simply done by tiping the words into the computer and then copy and paste. When entering a new market it is not only essential to know the buyer’s preferences, but also to understand differences in the use of language. What might be a good joke in one language might be taken offensive in another. So translation should be done by experts, of course with the help of algorithms, but also with the understanding of emotions and cultural differences of a human.