diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 5244a57a1..614174405 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -205,12 +205,16 @@ src/headless/dist/converse-headless.min.js: src webpack/webpack.common.js node_m
 
 dist:: node_modules src/* | dist/website.css dist/website.min.css
 	npm run headless
-	npm run build
-	# This step is necessary to properly generate JSON files from the .po
-	# files. The nodeps config uses preset-env with IE11 to turn all template
-	# literals into old JS strings, which is required because gettext 0.21
-	# doesn't support template literals.
+	# Ideally this should just be `npm run nodeps`.
+	# The additional steps are necessary to properly generate JSON files from
+	# the .po files. The nodeps config uses preset-env with IE11 to turn all
+	# template literals into old JS strings, which is required because
+	# gettext 0.21 doesn't support template literals.
 	npm run nodeps
+	mkdir tmp && mv dist/locales tmp
+	npm run build
+	cp tmp/locales/*-po.js dist/locales/
+	rm -rf tmp
 
 .PHONY: install
 install:: dist