Starter Kit. Idea 173 of 500. Cluster 7
Translation services for product labels into German, Japanese, Chinese and Arabic
The mechanism, from the book
The tiny business pathway. A rural woman with an exceptional product should not need photography, English copy, packaging design and a distributor before the world can find her.
The first step
Take the label of one product that is already exported, a tea or a spice pack, and have it translated into German, Japanese, Chinese and Arabic by qualified translators. Show the four versions to the producer and ask whether a buyer in any of those markets has asked for one. Then offer the same service to five more producers at a fixed fee per language.
- Who pays first
- A producer whose importer in Germany, Japan or the Gulf has asked for a label in the local language before placing an order.
- What leaves today
- Labels only in English limit where a product can be sold finished, so it leaves in bulk to be relabelled by the importer.
Ask first
- Sri Lanka Standards Institution. Ask what language rules apply to labels on goods sold here.
- Sri Lanka Export Development Board. Ask which markets ask most often for translated labels.
Check before you spend
That every translation is checked by a native speaker, and that the label meets the rules of the country it is sold in.
Find out these three numbers
- What will a producer pay to translate one label?
- Which languages do buyers ask for most?
- How many producers sell abroad now?
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.