rki.news

By Hafiza Sidra Javid
A few years ago, while helping a client search for bakar khani on a major UK marketplace, I noticed something that the platform’s search system appeared unable to recognise. The product existed, sellers were offering it, and customers were actively looking for it. Yet searches using Urdu spellings, transliterations, or culturally familiar terms often produced limited results. The bakery was there and the demand was there, but the connection between the two was frequently missing.
At first glance, it seemed like a minor inconvenience. Most online shoppers encounter unsuccessful searches every day and quickly move on. However, after years of working in digital marketing, e-commerce account management and search optimisation, I recognised a broader pattern. Many businesses serving ethnic minority communities were not struggling because customers lacked interest in their products. They were struggling because the digital systems designed to connect buyers and sellers were not built around the languages, terminology and cultural references those communities use.
This issue is particularly relevant in the United Kingdom, where diverse South Asian, Bengali, Somali and East African communities contribute significantly to local economies through thousands of small businesses. These businesses sell products deeply rooted in cultural traditions, including foods, clothing, jewellery, textiles and household goods. Yet much of the digital infrastructure through which modern commerce operates remains centred on English-language search behaviour and mainstream consumer categories.
The result is not necessarily deliberate exclusion. Instead, it is a visibility problem. Sellers may have products available online and buyers may be actively searching for them, but the platform sitting between them does not always recognise the language, spelling variations or culturally specific search terms involved. When this happens repeatedly, businesses become harder to discover, customers become frustrated and opportunities for trade are lost.
This challenge ultimately inspired the creation of Fatima Global, a multilingual marketplace designed to improve product discoverability for communities that are often underserved by mainstream e-commerce systems. Named after my daughter, the platform was conceived as a long-term project focused on accessibility rather than simply another online storefront.
The platform has been designed with multilingual functionality in mind, supporting English alongside languages such as Urdu, Bengali, Somali and Swahili. Particular attention has been given to communities whose products and businesses frequently receive limited visibility online despite strong demand within their customer base. By recognising culturally relevant search terms and presenting content in multiple languages, the platform aims to reduce barriers that often prevent smaller sellers from reaching potential customers. The marketplace also incorporates multilingual shortcuts and intelligent autocorrection. Common alternative spellings, transliterations, abbreviations and phonetic variations can be mapped to the same product, allowing searches such as different Urdu or Bengali spellings to return relevant results without requiring customers to know the exact wording used by the seller.
While the concept addresses a specific market gap, the operational approach remains practical. Sellers are introduced through community networks and trusted local channels, helping to build genuine engagement rather than focusing solely on rapid sign-up numbers. The emphasis is on creating complete product catalogues and meaningful marketplace participation rather than pursuing growth metrics alone.
Beyond supporting existing UK-based businesses, there is also a broader economic opportunity. Multilingual digital commerce has the potential to connect overseas producers and entrepreneurs with customers in the UK while simultaneously helping smaller British businesses reach wider audiences. In this sense, improved discoverability is not only a community issue but also a commercial one. This market gap extends beyond language alone: many culturally specific products have no standardised naming convention, so identical items may be listed under different regional names or spellings, reducing visibility across conventional search systems.
For many small businesses, competing on large marketplaces can be difficult. Limited marketing budgets, language barriers and low search visibility often mean that products struggle to gain traction despite their quality or relevance. Creating environments that recognise diverse search behaviour may help level the playing field for businesses that have traditionally relied on local networks and word-of-mouth recommendations.
My own interest in this issue developed through practical experience rather than theory. Working with e-commerce sellers over several years revealed recurring patterns in search performance, indexing challenges and discoverability problems. What initially appeared to be isolated cases often reflected wider structural issues affecting entire categories of businesses. One reason this gap has persisted is that mainstream marketplaces have largely optimised their search systems using high-volume English-language data. Ethnic products often represent relatively small, fragmented categories with multiple spellings and naming conventions, making the disconnect less visible in aggregate analytics. As a result, the missing link between customer intent and product listings was often interpreted as low demand rather than a search and discoverability problem.
More broadly, the discussion extends beyond any single company or platform. As digital marketplaces continue to shape how consumers discover products and how businesses access customers, inclusivity in search and visibility will become increasingly important. A marketplace can contain thousands of products, but if customers cannot find what they are looking for using the language most natural to them, significant value remains hidden.
The UK’s digital economy is among the most advanced in the world, yet there is still room to improve how online systems accommodate linguistic and cultural diversity. Addressing this challenge does not require abandoning existing e-commerce models. Instead, it requires recognising that search, categorisation and discoverability are shaped by the assumptions built into the platforms themselves.
Fatima Global remains in the early stages of development, and its long-term impact will ultimately be determined by the value it delivers to sellers and customers. Whether it becomes a lasting fixture of multicultural e-commerce or simply contributes to a wider conversation, the underlying issue remains relevant. As online commerce becomes the default marketplace for many consumers, ensuring that diverse communities can participate fully is increasingly becoming an essential part of building a digital economy that reflects the society it serves.