Amazon’s breakthrough language barrier

Now Amazon is aiming to break through that language barrier. The e-commerce giant Tuesday offered a hearty “namaste” to this country’s half a billion Hindi speakers by making its local website and apps available in India’s most popular language.

Users of the India site or app will be able to choose Hindi as their preferred language, much as American users can choose Spanish.

Amazon’s Hindi site is the most ambitious attempt so far to serve Indian shoppers who do not speak English. Another e-commerce site, Snapdeal, tried local-language versions about three years ago, then abandoned them because few customers used them.