Shoppers Notice Weird Translation Errors As Amazon Launches In Sweden
Published
For those of us used to life with unlimited free shipping and one-day delivery, it might come as a surprise that there are some countries Amazon has yet to conquer.
Until recently, one of the countries holding out against the online retail giant was Sweden, with Swedish shoppers forced to order items through Amazon’s German website. That all changed now though, when amazon.se finally went live in country today, October 28.
More than 150 million items are said to be available on Amazon’s new Swedish site, and though customers were naturally excited by the development, while browsing the website many couldn’t help but notice that some of the descriptions of items for sale on the site were… not quite right.
It seems like somewhere along the line, Amazon’s auto-translation function has got a bit mixed up, and the results are entertaining and confusing Swedes in equal measure, as Di Digital reports.
Among products listed for sale are a jacket labelled as an ‘ice cream machine’, ‘massage oil for back with devil’s claw’, a ‘sexual assault’ shower curtain and a ‘dry rape’ football shirt.
People have also taken to social media to post some of the translation fails, with one user posting an image of a baking tray for ‘chocolate, excrement and goose water’.
Another user questioned whether ‘hand-knitted penises’ were a popular new trend in arts & crafts.
Users also pointed out that the site appeared have changed the country’s flag to that of Argentina.
The mistakes have people questioning how the world’s largest online retailer could get things so badly wrong.
Speaking to BreakIt, translated by The Telegraph, Nicklas Storåkers, head of a Swedish price comparison website, said:
This is the worst trainwreck I’ve ever seen.
They have no special offers, wrong translations, and the wrong texts for some products.
Amazon have apologised for the errors and said they are working on fixing the translations.
In a statement, the company said:
We would like to thank everyone who is bringing these issues to light and so helping us make changes and improve Amazon.se.
We are very happy to have launched in Sweden, but this is only our first day and we are determined to improve our customers’ experience.
After waiting so long for Amazon to finally launch in the country, Sweden must be wondering what all the fuss is about.
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Topics: Technology, Amazon, language, Shopping, Sweden
