Web site localization has become essential in reaching and maintaining customers in international and ethnic domestic markets, whether you are a B2B or a B2C. Localization is the key factor for acceptance and success of an international product. It is important to speak to your customers and clients in their own language and culture. Your Web site is successfully localized when it looks as though it was developed within the local culture you are targeting. Web site localization requires sensitive consideration to components and content such as time zones, dates, gender roles, money, color sensitivities, national holidays, product or service names, contact information, geographical examples and reversal of page layouts for right-to-left reading languages (such as Hebrew and Arabic). Culturally inappropriate images and icons need to be eliminated. In some cases, it is necessary to translate the content into the local dialect rather than the official language of the country, for the local client or consumer to associate with your product or service. The following facts clarify the reason why you should localize and operate a multi-lingual Web-site: • By 2005, over 70 percent of the one billion global web users will be non-English speakers. (IDC) • By 2004, worldwide eCommerce revenues are expected to reach US $6.8 trillion. (Forrester Research) • The European business to consumer e-commerce is projected to grow from $5.4 billion in 1999 to more than $115 billion in 2003. (IDC) • Japanese e-commerce will rocket from a lowly $4.2 billion in 1999 to an astronomical $693 billion in 2003, roughly 16,000%. (Andersen Consulting and the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry) • 46% of sites turn away international orders because they can't fill them. (Forrester Research)