In the Gulf, a large share of shoppers switch between Arabic and English depending on the product and the device. A store that only speaks one of them quietly loses the other half of the audience, and a badly translated store loses trust in both.
The goal is not two websites. It is one store with one catalogue, one stock count and one order list, presented in two languages. Here is how to set that up without doubling your workload.
Give each language its own URL, its own translated product pages and a proper right-to-left layout for Arabic, then keep one product catalogue behind both. Translate what sells (titles, descriptions, checkout, emails) first and the rest later.
Decide which languages you can actually maintain
Start with two languages, not five. Every language you add is a promise to keep prices, descriptions, policies and emails in sync forever. An out-of-date page in a second language is worse than no page.
Pick your primary language first, usually the one your customer support speaks, then add the second only when someone can answer messages in it.
Layout, fonts and direction
Arabic is right-to-left, and that changes more than text alignment: menus, carousels, progress bars, arrows and icons all need to mirror. Numbers and English brand names inside Arabic sentences must still read correctly.
- Use fonts designed for Arabic (Cairo, Tajawal, IBM Plex Sans Arabic) next to a matching Latin face.
- Mirror directional icons such as arrows and back buttons, but not logos or phone numbers.
- Leave room in buttons and menus: Arabic and German text are often longer than English.
- Test the checkout form in both directions on a phone, where most orders happen.
One URL per language, and tell Google about it
Use a clear structure such as /ar/ and /en/ rather than switching text on the same address. Each language page then gets indexed on its own and can rank for searches typed in that language.
Add hreflang tags so search engines know which page is the Arabic version of which English page, and translate the page title and meta description too, not just the body. Search terms differ by language: people do not search in Arabic the way they would translate an English phrase, so write the Arabic keywords natively.
Currency, tax and the checkout
Show prices in the local currency, for example SAR, and make VAT clear (15 percent in Saudi Arabia at the time of writing; check the current rate for each country you sell to). Keep invoices in Arabic where local rules expect it, and check the tax authority's current requirements.
Translate everything the buyer reads after paying: order confirmation, shipping updates and returns policy. These are the messages people save and quote when something goes wrong.
Building it with Uttra
You can describe the whole thing in chat and refine it in the live preview. A prompt like the one below is a good start; afterwards change any text by chatting or by clicking the element.
"Build a perfume store in Arabic and English with a language switcher in the header, right-to-left layout for Arabic, prices in SAR, a product catalogue shared by both languages, and a cash-on-delivery or card checkout."