GiftBaskets.com erweitert seine Website durch innovative spanischsprachige Funktionen

1. Dezember 2003

ZUR SOFORTIGEN VERÖFFENTLICHUNG
1. Dezember 2003
Contact: Myra Gross
(954) 915-9399

Marc Malaga is a visionary and an innovator. In 1994, when e-commerce was still in its infancy, he recognized the potential of bringing gifts and flowers to the World Wide Web and started his company, GiftBaskets.com.

GiftBaskets.com is a leading retail website providing flowers, gift baskets, food baskets, and unique gift combinations for any occasion. Malaga says the site attracts more than 200,000 visitors a month.

But to Malaga, 200,000 visitors a month is just the beginning. Several weeks ago, GiftBaskets.com launched a Spanish language version of its site, entered into an agreement with Univision, and is now the first fully translated site on Univision's portal in the flowers and gifts category.

What made this possible was Malaga's serendipitous introduction to MotionPoint, a Boca Raton company that offers TransMotion™, a new website translation technology and service. TransMotion™ provides clients with high-quality translations, affordable end-to-end service, and the capability to duplicate clients' English language websites in Spanish while preserving the site's visual alignment, format, and overall "look and feel."

Headed by entrepreneurs Will Fleming, CEO, and Adam Rubenstein, COO, MotionPoint provides innovative web-based services in multiple languages for E-commerce companies and other organizations. While delivering English and Spanish web-based services for Sears, the partners realized they could extend the uses of their proprietary translation technology and processes. Earlier this year, they began offering services to E-commerce companies that need a second language website.

"Our services are particularly valuable for E-commerce companies with large, complex, rapidly-changing websites," said Fleming. "Our TransMotion™ technology will help companies like GiftBaskets.com cater to the huge, underserved Hispanic market."

"This holiday season we're anticipating sales to double, and it's clear our new Spanish language capability is a key driver of growth," Malaga said. "Working with MotionPoint made the addition of Spanish a quick and simple process. They did terrific work; we're already reaping rewards. We simply maintain our English language site as usual, and MotionPoint immediately makes the changes on the Spanish language site. We anticipate that our initial investment will be recouped in a matter of weeks."

Traditionally, the complexity, expense, and high maintenance involved in creating and managing websites have kept E-commerce companies from launching a second language site. Only a handful have invested the time and money required to translate and deploy Spanish language websites. The rest are missing a massive opportunity: according to government statistics, there are 37 million Hispanics living in the U.S. In 2000 they had purchasing power of $450 billion a year. By 2010, that purchasing power will exceed $1 trillion.

"More than half of Hispanics over the age of 16 are Internet users," Fleming said. "Research indicates that many of them, even if they're bilingual, prefer to read and write in Spanish - the language they use in their family life. The Spanish option at Giftbaskets.com makes many customers feel more comfortable."

MotionPoint offers a simple, cost-effective, high-quality solution to website translation. The company deploys human translators who use its proprietary Computer Aided Translation (CAT) tools to professionally translate the English site. The client activates the Spanish site by simply adding a link to the home page, which allows a customer to view the site in Spanish with a simple mouse-click. Translated pages are delivered to online users by the TransMotion™ server software. The client continues to maintain and update the English language site as usual, and MotionPoint maintains and updates the Spanish via its proprietary TransMotion™ tools.

"I researched all of my options for Spanish language capability," said Malaga. "The TransMotion™ technology is far and away the best option for companies like mine who frequently change their websites."