Amazon en Español dominated by English

Cyndy Aleo-Carreira — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 17:36:38 -0400

Amazon is gunning for an Hispanic customer base with today's launch of Software en Español, a subsection of the Amazon site that is focused on Spanish-language and bilingual software packages, including office utility software, children's learning software, and language instruction software.

What's most curious about the Software en Español effort is that virtually all of the text is in English. Headlines and a few sidebar items are en Español, but the rest is in English, and clicking through to any product featured leads back to the regular English-language product text.

If Amazon is really trying to go after the Spanish-language market, the token amount of Spanish-language text used here isn't going to do enough to sway the audience. A few phrases in Spanish without follow-through on item descriptions won't help non-English speakers, and it feels like a minimal effort for the usually detail-focused Amazon.

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