Structure-preserving translation
Because Doc2Shelf understands a listing as fields — title, description, bullets, specifications — it translates each field and reassembles the listing intact. You get a properly structured product page in the target language, not a flattened paragraph.
Declarations and safety information can be localized while keeping their structure. Treat translated compliance content as a review-ready draft: requirements vary by product and market, and translation itself does not establish compliance.
Localize a whole catalog
Translate one hero listing or localize an entire catalog for a new market. Because translation works from the structured product record, it scales the same way generation does — consistently, across hundreds of products.
Run multi-market Shopify storefronts and multilingual WooCommerce sites, or prepare region-specific eBay-targeted draft copy for review and generic CSV/JSON export, from a single source of truth.
From one document to many markets
Start with a single supplier PDF: Doc2Shelf extracts the data, drafts the listing and declarations, and translates the structured content. One upload can produce localized material ready for review in each target market; a qualified reviewer must confirm the language and applicable requirements before use.
What gets translated — and what stays as it is
A product listing mixes text that should be translated with values that must never change. Doc2Shelf translates each listing section separately and creates a new listing in the target language, linked to the original and starting as an unreviewed draft. The translation is instructed to follow the rules below; the review step is where you confirm it did.
Compliance declarations follow the same approach: legal names, addresses, and identifiers stay as they are, and the translated declaration is a review-ready draft for a qualified reviewer to approve.
How each part of a listing is handled| Listing part | What is translated | What stays unchanged |
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| Title | Generic product-type and descriptive words | Brand and trademark names, model numbers, SKU, GTIN, and other product codes |
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| Short and long description | All human-readable text | HTML tags and attributes, numbers, units, and URLs |
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| Bullet points | Each bullet, in place | The number and order of bullets |
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| Specifications | Attribute names and descriptive values | Numbers, units, codes, and standard references |
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| GPSR information block | Field labels and surrounding descriptions | Company and person names, postal and email addresses, phone numbers, registration identifiers |
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| Safety and regulatory phrases | Uses official target-language wording for hazard, precautionary, and allergen statements where one exists | H and P statement codes, INCI ingredient names, E-numbers |
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| [REQUIRED: …] placeholders | The description inside may be translated | The [REQUIRED: ] wrapper, so open gaps stay easy to find in every language |
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Terminology, units, and number formats
Translation keeps numbers and units exactly as they appear in the source listing. That protects the facts — a 1.2 kg product never becomes 1.3 kg through rounding — but it also means market conventions are a review decision, not an automatic conversion. Agree the rules per market before the first catalog goes out, and give reviewers a short glossary of approved category terms.
Market conventions to check in each translated listing| Topic | What to check | Example |
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| Metric and imperial units | Whether the market expects imperial units alongside the measured metric value | 25 cm (9.8 in) for a US listing; keep the datasheet value |
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| Decimal separator | Many European languages write decimals with a comma | 1.5 kg in English, 1,5 kg in German or French |
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| Thousands separator | Separators that read as decimals in another locale | “1,000 mAh” reads as one milliampere-hour to a German reader; use 1000 or 1.000 |
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| Clothing and shoe sizes | EU, UK, and US size systems differ | Map sizes with the supplier’s size chart, never by formula |
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| Dates | Day-month order differs between markets | Write best-before or launch dates unambiguously, for example 05 Mar 2027 |
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| Category terminology | One approved term per concept across the catalog | Pick “charger” or “power adapter” per language and use it everywhere |
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Language rules for labels and instructions are a separate question
Translating a listing is not the same as meeting a market’s language requirements. Several EU and US rules set which language specific information must appear in — on the label, in the instructions, in the declaration, or in the online offer — and those rules depend on the product category and the market. This is general information, not legal advice: translation itself does not establish compliance, and a qualified reviewer should confirm what applies.
Examples of where language rules come from:
- GPSR online offers: warnings and safety information must be shown in a language easily understood by consumers, as determined by the Member State where the product is made available (Regulation (EU) 2023/988, Article 19(d)).
- Textiles: EU fiber-composition labels must be in the official language(s) of the Member State where the product reaches the consumer, unless that Member State provides otherwise (Regulation (EU) No 1007/2011, Article 16(3)). US textile labeling information must be in English (16 CFR 303.4).
- Cosmetics: national law decides the language of several label particulars, while the ingredient list uses the common INCI-based names rather than translations (Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009, Article 19(5) and 19(6)).
- Toys: Member States may require warnings and safety instructions in their own language(s) (Directive 2009/48/EC, Article 11(3)).
- EU declarations of conformity: translated into the language(s) required by the Member State where the product is placed or made available (Decision No 768/2008/EC, Annex I, Article R10).
A review workflow for native speakers
Each translated listing is its own record with its own review status, so one language can be approved while another is still in progress. A practical workflow keeps the source language as the single source of truth and sends each language to someone who reads it natively and knows the category.
Machine translation gives the reviewer a structured first draft rather than a blank page, which keeps review time focused on meaning, terminology, and market fit instead of retyping specification tables.
- Review and approve the source-language listing first; translating an unreviewed draft multiplies its mistakes.
- Translate into the target languages you need — more than 100 languages are available, including all 24 official EU languages.
- Assign each language to a native-speaking reviewer with the category glossary and the market’s unit and number conventions.
- The reviewer compares the translation with the source: meaning, terminology, units, number formats, and that nothing was added or dropped.
- Check regulatory phrases and warnings against official wording for that market, and resolve any [REQUIRED: …] placeholders.
- Edit directly where needed, mark the listing as reviewed, then publish it as a draft to Shopify or WooCommerce or export it. Any later edit sends it back for review.
SEO for localized listings
A literal translation can be grammatically perfect and still miss what shoppers in that market type into the search box. Localized SEO starts from local search terms, not from the English keyword list. Even markets that share a language search differently: UK shoppers look for “trainers” and “mobile phone cases” where US shoppers type “sneakers” and “cell phone cases”.
- Research keywords per market with local search data, then check that the translated title and first sentence use the phrase buyers actually search for.
- Keep the main term in the title and opening sentence once, naturally — the same no-stuffing rule applies in every language.
- Localize the store-side SEO fields too: in Shopify the SEO title allows 70 characters and the meta description 320, and they are set per product in the store.
- Recheck title length after translation: translated titles can run longer than the source and exceed a channel’s limit.
- Localize image alt text in the store as well; Shopify allows up to 512 characters and recommends 125 or fewer.
- Let reviewers adjust word order and phrasing for search, as long as the facts stay the same as in the source listing.