Part 1: About Fairtex ▶ Watch (0:00)

Background
Founded in 1971 by Philip Wong, Fairtex began as a textile manufacturer before evolving into one of the most recognised names in global combat sports. Driven by Wong's passion for Muay Thai, the brand expanded into equipment manufacturing and training, opening a facility in Pattaya, Thailand. Its international profile accelerated significantly after a sponsorship partnership with ONE Championship brought Fairtex to a worldwide audience. The brand now spans Muay Thai, MMA, kickboxing, and jiu-jitsu, and recently celebrated its 55th anniversary.

Rikki Chan's background ▶ Watch (1:45)
Rikki began her career in 2005 in marketing, qualitative strategy, and audience analysis, working with major brands including Samsung, Prada, Visa, Mastercard, and Taco Bell across the US. She later moved to Europe, joining Booking.com as a data scientist implementing strategies across the Benelux market. She joined Fairtex around two and a half years ago to modernise the brand's ecommerce and international presence.

Part 2: The Challenge — Reaching a Global Audience ▶ Watch (5:00)

Modernising the platform
When Rikki joined, Fairtex operated a largely distributor-based model with an outdated website. The team migrated from Magento to Shopify and rebuilt the site experience from the ground up, recognising how buyer behaviour had shifted — particularly during COVID. The site initially launched as a single English-language store for the global market and a separate site for the Thai audience.

The language barrier ▶ Watch (6:40)
A core problem quickly emerged: operating almost entirely in English meant large audiences in non-English-speaking markets were being lost. Multiple Shopify language plugins were trialled, but translation quality was inconsistent and incomplete — certain words were mistranslated, others not translated at all. Fairtex knew demand existed in markets like Spain, Germany, Poland, Japan, South Korea, and Arabic-speaking regions, but lacked the infrastructure to reach those audiences properly.

Part 3: The Glopal Solution ▶ Watch (7:52)

What Glopal does for Fairtex
Glopal was introduced to Rikki by the Glopal team after she had raised concerns about the language barrier. The platform translates not just the core website, but also blogs, product descriptions, navigation, and Google ads into over 20 languages. For Fairtex, this meant launching a dedicated third website for the European market, supported by a warehouse in the Netherlands. Order processing remained unchanged through Shopify — no additional operational overhead for the warehouse team, which continues to process all orders as normal.

Translation control ▶ Watch (10:36)
Fairtex retains full control over translation rules in the backend — specifying terms that should not be translated, or adapting language for specific markets such as China. This level of customisation was not available through the Shopify plugins previously trialled.

Onboarding ▶ Watch (23:57)
The integration took approximately six weeks from start to go-live — including onboarding during the busy holiday trading period. Glopal provided clear documentation, timelines, and support throughout. Rikki noted the process was straightforward, with Glopal outlining exactly what was done and what remained to be completed at each stage.

Part 4: Early Results ▶ Watch (12:39)

New markets emerging
Despite being live for only around one month at the time of the webinar, Fairtex was already seeing meaningful results. Germany, previously second to France in Europe, had taken the lead in traffic and sales — prompting Fairtex to sign a new deal with a 20-gym network there. Spain and Poland, markets where demand was known but previously unreachable, showed real increases in both visits and conversions. Abandoned cart rates had dropped noticeably across markets.

Unexpected audiences ▶ Watch (19:57)
South Korea, South America, Finland, and even Macedonia emerged as unexpected sources of traffic — markets where Fairtex had little or no prior visibility. The pattern was consistent: audiences already existed in these markets, but an English-only site had made Fairtex effectively invisible to them. Customer service enquiries began arriving in Polish, Arabic, and other languages, confirming real engagement from previously unreachable regions.

Ads localisation ▶ Watch (22:02)
Prior to Glopal, Fairtex hired multilingual staff to manage localised paid campaigns — a costly and limiting approach. Glopal's automatic translation of Google ads into local languages eliminated that overhead, allowing the team to reach more markets with the same budget and reallocate spend more strategically.

Part 5: What's Next for Fairtex ▶ Watch (15:06)

European expansion
The Netherlands warehouse, opened in July 2024, has grown rapidly and remains the anchor for European operations. Fairtex has signed sponsorship deals with fight organisations Infusion and Glory, and is actively sponsoring multiple gyms across France. All manufacturing remains in-house in Thailand, with the team focused on keeping pace with growing demand.

Global logistics roadmap ▶ Watch (25:00)
Once the European operation is fully stabilised, Fairtex plans to open warehouse locations in the US and South America — with South America identified as a priority given the volume of traffic already emerging from the region. The team is actively seeking third-party logistics partners to support that expansion.

Brand milestones ▶ Watch (16:46)
Fairtex recently won a Martech Award in Thailand recognising its use of AI-driven technology in ecommerce. The brand will also appear in the Russell Crowe film Beastly, releasing April 10th. A further major collaboration is planned for November — details to be revealed on the Fairtex website.

Q&A Highlights ▶ Watch (18:03)

What's the most common mistake brands make when going international? ▶ Watch (18:44)
Moving too fast without building a stable foundation. Rikki also highlighted the risk of creating products and content based on assumptions rather than listening to the actual audience. Fairtex runs a questionnaire on its European site to gather direct customer feedback — informing product development, regional targeting, and content strategy.

What's the most surprising country to emerge since going multilingual? ▶ Watch (19:57)
South Korea stood out — initial SEO research had suggested limited audience there, but traffic has grown significantly since localisation. Macedonia was another unexpected source of inbound enquiries. Both examples reinforced a core theme of the session: you often don't know where your audience is until you speak to them in their own language.

Which markets seem most promising from the early data? ▶ Watch (21:15)
France and Germany remain the top two European markets. France in particular has seen a significant increase in conversions — previously, French-speaking customers had to manually select a language at the top of the page; automatic translation has removed that friction entirely. Finland has also emerged as a stronger market than anticipated.

How has Glopal helped with running localised ads? ▶ Watch (23:00)
Previously, Fairtex hired language-specific staff to manage ads in German, French, and Spanish — a costly and limiting approach. Glopal translates ads automatically on the backend, meaning Fairtex can now reach a far wider set of markets without the staffing overhead, and Google Shopping feeds appear in the shopper's local language.

How long does implementation take? ▶ Watch (23:57)
Fairtex went live within six weeks, including during the holiday peak period. Glopal's standard timeframe for a Shopify integration is four to six weeks, though some brands have gone live in two to three. The pace largely depends on the merchant's own availability and responsiveness during setup.