.jpg?width=770&height=513&name=DSCF5974%20(2).jpg)
The world’s ongoing digital transformation has seen thousands of brick-and-mortar businesses close down or revamp their operations significantly. Fortunately, this does not mean there is no longer any reason to set up or maintain a physical business. The tangible experiences and engagement offered by physical businesses still make them incredibly advantageous as sales channels.
However, for physical stores to succeed in this day and age, business owners need to adapt to a new and fast-changing retail environment. Let’s explore what’s changed for physical stores in the past few years:
1) High Consumer Expectations
Whether they’re shopping online or at a brick-and-mortar store, today’s customers expect speed at every point in their journey. Taking a wider view of the typical customer journey and continuously improving it is, therefore, the only way to succeed in today’s increasingly demanding retail landscape.
In the Philippine setting, payments continue to be a serious friction point for small business customer journeys. Adopting a payment terminal that can accept all cards and digital payments will afford small businesses a potent way to not only meet today’s customer expectations, but it can also improve their cash flow.
The Maya Terminal and the Terminal Lite have become a favorite of local brick-and-mortar operations when it comes to portable payment devices. Apart from their ability to accommodate modern tap-to-pay and EMV cards, they can also be used to accept payments from popular digital wallets, offering customers a uniquely smooth payment experience.
2) Technology Integration
To compete in a digital world, physical business owners must make strategic technology investments in their inventory management, human resources (HR), marketing, and of course, payments. This strategic adoption of technology will not only bring down overheads, but it should also improve the overall customer experience and keep physical stores competitive.
Thankfully, businesses can start small with their tech integration, focusing on key areas that offer the most benefits and the lowest initial cost. Steps like adopting a better payment terminal machine or adding social media marketing operations require minimal investment, but it can can yield significant gains for a store’s efficiency and engagement.
3) Staffing
The increased use of technology in physical businesses requires them to be staffed by digitally-ready employees. And while the Philippines does have a fairly young and technologically literate population, businesses still need to invest in their employees’ training and recognize the importance of choosing user-friendly technologies to reduce training times and maximize the use of their investments.
For instance, choosing Android-based terminals like the Maya Terminal and Terminal Lite can reduce employee onboarding times while also empowering employees to use their payment tools more effectively. The investment will pay off, as customers will enjoy spending more time in physical businesses staffed by trustworthy and tech-literate employees.
4) Rising Costs
Physical businesses continue to face serious challenges from rising real estate, labor, and operating costs, particularly in built-up urban areas. These escalating expenses necessitate creative solutions to maintain competitiveness and keep physical businesses viable.
Solutions that have been used with much success include outsourcing as well as offering remote or hybrid work for some employees. Some businesses have even moved to provincial or overseas locations, where the associated operating costs are lower. However, these are not one-size-fits-all strategies, and every business needs to find cost-effective solutions that actually align with its objectives.
5) Competition from E-commerce Stores
Brick-and-mortar businesses continue to hold a serious advantage in the kinds of engagement and experiences they can deliver. However, the convenience, wide product selection, and often competitive pricing of online retailers have drawn many customers away from traditional brick-and-mortar stores. Fortunately, existing physical businesses can still beat online stores at their own game and offer their customers a true omnichannel experience.
A brick-and-mortar store can easily leverage its real-world presence to deliver a superior online shopping experience compared to its online-only competitors. Having products that customers can touch and interact with may help increase customer confidence and even reduce product returns.
Even better, physical stores only need to integrate a ready-to-use online shopping platform like Shopify or WooCommerce as well as a virtual payment terminal to offer online shopping and create a superior omnichannel experience for their customers.
Elevate In-Store Customer Experiences with the Maya Terminal
The Maya Terminal and the Maya Terminal Lite card payment terminals are a favorite of brick-and-mortar businesses in the Philippines thanks to these machines’ ease of use and ability to accept a full range of relevant digital payments. Create a Maya Business Manager account today to enjoy Maya’s in-store payment solutions and unique offers like Maya 1-2-3 Grow bundle.
Maya 1-2-3 Grow is a product bundle designed to help Philippine-based startups and small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) grow faster and more sustainably. Signing up entitles you to 3 months of 1% merchant discount rate (MDR) on all QR Ph transactions completed with Maya Business solutions. That’s PHP 14,600 in transaction fee savings for every PHP 1 million in QR Ph sales. As part of the bundle, having a Maya Business Deposit account as your settlement account also lets you enjoy free fund transfers via InstaPay and PesoNET, as well as a generous 2.5% p.a. interest on your account. This translates to PHP 25,000 in earnings on a PHP 1 million deposit. Finally, the Maya 1-2-3 Grow promo also qualifies you for a Maya Flexi Loan of up to PHP 2 million, within 3 months after joining. Sign up for Maya Business today for seamless payments at your store and reap the benefits of the Maya 1-2-3 Grow bundle.
