French Product Pages on Shopify or WooCommerce: Translation Is Not Enough

Archive note. This article describes the situation as it stood when it was published. The rules, tools and features it mentions may have changed since. Check the current information with the official source before acting.

French product pages on Shopify or WooCommerce: most store owners run the catalogue through a translation app and assume the French side is done. I understand the appeal, because it is fast and it is cheap. I have watched Québec shoppers bounce off pages that read like a machine wrote them, though, and the tells are small enough that an English speaker running the store will miss them.

French product pages on Shopify or WooCommerce: what translation alone misses

Machine translation swaps your vocabulary but keeps the English sentence patterns, so the French reads stiff and slightly off. Run a page through Google Translate or a translation app from the Shopify App Store and you get French words, not a page a Québec shopper trusts. It misses the local expressions people here use every day, it drops accents on capital letters, and it can mangle sizing, shipping terms and measurements. It will not adjust your tone either. English product copy tends to run casual and bold, while a Québec buyer usually expects something calmer and more precise, and a translation app cannot make that shift for you.

Product titles and descriptions written in French, not translated word for word

Rewrite each title and description in real French rather than converting the English one clause by clause. A title that was punchy in English often turns clumsy once a tool has swapped the words in place, because the rhythm and word order that made it work do not carry over. Write the French version from the product itself, in the tone a Québec shopper expects, then read it out loud to hear whether it sounds native or translated.

Variant labels are where this slips most often. Do not translate "Size" to "Taille" and then leave the options as S, M and L; give "Petit", "Moyen" and "Grand" or a clear metric measurement beside each one. Colours need the same care: "Navy Blue" becomes "bleu marine", not a literal pairing that reads as nonsense to a francophone. Keep an eye on length as well, since French phrasing usually runs longer than the English it replaces, and a label that fit an English button can wrap or clip once it is in French.

Metric units, sizing and delivery language Québec shoppers expect

Québec shoppers grew up with the metric system, so your pages need to speak it as the default. List weights in grams and kilograms, sizes in centimetres, and volumes in millilitres or litres. For clothing, put the centimetre measurements next to each size so no one has to guess what a label means, and lean on Canadian or European charts rather than US-only numbers.

Delivery language matters just as much. Say "livraison" where it reads more naturally than "expédition", and give a concrete window like "livraison en 2 à 5 jours ouvrables" instead of a vague translated line. Name Postes Canada rather than leaving "Canada Post" in English. Show prices in Canadian dollars, with the sign after the amount in the Québec style, "24,99 $", and a comma for the decimal. These small choices earn trust because they show the shopper you understand how they measure, size and read a price.

URL structure and meta tags for a French product page

Three things carry the most weight on a French product page: the URL, the title tag and the meta description. When I work on e-commerce marketing for a store, this is where the French side either holds together or comes apart.

The URL should use French words in the handle, edited by hand. Shopify and WooCommerce both let you set the handle yourself, so take the minute it costs. The title tag needs the product name, one clear benefit, and your city or region when it is relevant, all in French and short enough to show in full. The meta description should read like one natural French sentence, so write it directly in French and check it out loud. If it sounds awkward to you, rewrite it.

Shopify apps and WooCommerce plugins available for a French storefront

Weglot and Langify are the Shopify apps I reach for on a French storefront, and WPML or Polylang do the same job on WooCommerce. On Shopify, those apps handle the translation layer, but I still check every string by hand for tone and accuracy. On WooCommerce, WPML and Polylang let you build separate French pages instead of relying on auto-translation, and separate pages are what a search engine can index cleanly. Pair either plugin with Yoast SEO so you control the French title and meta description on each page. Whatever runs your e-commerce store, place a test order in French yourself and watch the checkout, because a string that reverts to English at payment is exactly where a sale slips away.

French page checks the way a Québec shopper would read them

Read every page the way a local shopper would, phone in hand, hunting for one quick answer before they buy. Picture someone in Mascouche or Repentigny scrolling your storefront: that is the lens I use when I go through a French catalogue. I run the same three checks each time. Does the wording sound like Québec French, and not like a translation from France or from English? Are the prices, shipping windows and return rules written the way local shoppers expect to read them? Do the buttons and forms still make sense on a phone? A read-through like this catches what an automated pass leaves behind, and it keeps the page sounding native to the people who actually buy.

Checklist before publishing a French product catalogue

Run one short pass before you push a French catalogue live, so nothing slips through at the last minute. Work down this list:

1. Every product title, description and variant label appears in French, not just the main page copy.
2. The French descriptions match the English in meaning, not word for word, with phrasing adjusted so it reads naturally.
3. The checkout, shipping options and confirmation emails all stay in French from cart to receipt.
4. Currency, tax display and measurement units follow Québec norms, including the "24,99 $" price format.
5. URLs, meta titles and image alt text all carry French wording.
6. A francophone reads a few pages before launch and flags anything that still sounds translated rather than written for them.

Sit a francophone down with the finished store before you launch. They will hear the one line that still sounds translated faster than any checklist can flag it.