Answering public demand, I fitted today a „Translate“-button to Ballonbasar, clickable at the bottom left corner of the screen. From now on, everybody can read Ballonbasar in a choice of twelve different languages. German was the only language since the beginning of Ballonbasar.
When Ballonbasar started, two and a half years ago, opportunities to sell and buy second hand balloon equipment were litte for German balloonists. There was – and there is – a well maintained list available, but in English only and language skills of German balloonists are usually poor, caused on one hand by their mean age, which is more at the top end of the scale. When these guys attended school, decades ago, priorities were different, getting a job and getting something to bite was at the top of the agenda, foreign languages were second. On the other side, thirty percent of the German balloonists are from Eastern Germany (for our readers from the States: this was the communist part of Germany before the wall came down!), not only that these poor buggers have been locked away for forty years, they didn’t have any English in school at all. Having a marketplace in German language was therefore very much appreciated and initiated the great success of Ballonbasar.
Today more and more readers from abroad visit Ballonbasar and it’s about time to make Ballonbasar more international. English is the number one language in the world, but it is probably a hopeless task to drive German balloonists into English lessons. With increasing visits from Eastern Europe, a third and fourth language should take place as well, but this is a mental challenge lightyears beyond possible.
This is where robots enter the game – far far away from perfect and sometimes funny, but good enough to get the gist. Together with a proper set of photos (the best way to avoid language problems!) it should not be a problem to do international business with second hand balloons.
Not only English, Russian, the main European languages, Korean and Japanese – even Chinese is available. China is the market of the future, 1.3 billion Chinese people have now access to your advertised equipment. At least this should mushroom your sales figures.
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