multi-language ecommerce site

i am planning a multi-language site, a project i have not previously attempted, and wonder if anyone has experience of this, whilst i consider the best approach.

my plan is to create a single database to hold all the product and order information, with any appropriate text content in the relevant language.
(i'm sure i have the knowledge to do this)

i would then have a number of identical sites (excepting html content which would be language specific) held in subdomains, all of which would interrogate the same database.
each site would use its own sessionid for set language.

the php code and sql on each site should be identical, the sql filtering the relevant recordsets by the appropriate sessionid.

if my database is structured correctly, i think this is achievable.

if anyone has experience of this, i would be interested in their input, as to what approach they took

regards