Building a successful online store requires smooth, easy-to-understand checkout processes. For Philippine-based startups and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), achieving this ideal requires implementing strategies tailored to the unique needs of the local market. In this article, we will explore six key practices to optimize your site’s checkout process, ultimately enhancing the customer experience and driving your business’s growth.
1) Build Your Site On a Widely Supported E-Commerce Platform
The e-commerce platform you choose for your site should be able to offer all the checkout functionality you need out of the box or through plugins. While there are plenty of good platforms out there, not all of them are necessarily suited for the needs of Philippine-based startups and SMEs.
Thanks to its practically limitless plugin library, active developer community, user-friendliness, and customizability, WooCommerce has become one of the most popular e-commerce platforms in the Philippine market. For SMEs and startups with limited resources, WooCommerce has emerged as a favorite, though other platforms like Shopify and Magento also have their advocates.
2) Install the Maya Checkout Plugin for Your Platform
On WooCommerce-built sites, you can easily optimize the checkout experience for FIlipino buyers by installing the Maya Checkout plugin for WooCommerce. This plugin gives your site a WooCommerce payment gateway that could be used to accept all electronic payments, including via debit and credit cards, QR codes, and e-wallets like Maya, Gcash, GrabPay, ShopeePay, and WeeChat Pay, and other payment methods.
Compared to popular alternatives like the WooCommerce Stripe payment gateway, the Maya plugin is a much more localized custom payment gateway WooCommerce developers of all skill levels can integrate. With the ability to accept all popular payment methods on their payment gateway, WooCommerce site owners can turn their focus on other things that heighten the visitor experience.
3) Improve Site Speeds
While modern e-commerce platforms give you the freedom to design your site however you want, adding too many elements can cause your site to slow down. If a site is too slow or fails to load consistently, it may result in a negative experience for visitors who may then leave and choose to do business elsewhere. At worst, slow loading speeds may even cause problems for transactions that are already underway. This is an especially relevant issue for e-commerce businesses in the Philippines, as digital connectivity remains uneven in some areas of the country.
Fortunately, speeding up your website is straightforward. Streamlining code, using compressed images, and implementing caching mechanisms are just a few ways to improve website performance. Using a better hosting service should also make your site load faster and improve the overall experience for visitors. By doing these, you’ll be able to create a snappy e-commerce website that works well in the Philippine context.
4) Test the Checkout Experience on Mobile Devices
While websites are usually developed on desktop computers, the overwhelming majority of Philippine site traffic originates from phones and tablets. This means that optimizing your site for these devices is crucial for ensuring the best checkout process for most of your visitors.
To ensure a seamless mobile checkout experience, start by adopting a mobile-first approach in your site design and development. Prioritize responsive design that adapts to different screen sizes and resolutions to provide a consistent and user-friendly experience across devices. You’ll also want to periodically test your website on various mobile devices to identify any issues and make necessary adjustments.
5) Provide a Checkout Experience in Local Languages
While most Filipinos are able to communicate in English, many feel much more confident when using their mother tongue. Putting up alternative versions of your site in local languages like Tagalog or Cebuano is fairly simple on WooCommerce and Shopify, and it could provide a better online shopping experience for many local buyers.
Before you add a local language to your site, it’s important to research the linguistic preferences of the regions you’re targeting. Consult with local language experts or conduct surveys to understand which languages and dialects are most widely spoken and preferred in those areas. This will help you prioritize the languages to focus on and ensure that your localized versions resonate with your target audience.
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6) Offer Live and Automated Chat Assistance
Offering a combination of live and automated chat functions on your site enables you to provide customers with highly personalized, round-the-clock assistance should they have trouble checking out items. Once a live agent or chatbot has walked a customer through the checkout process, chances are that they will be able complete subsequent purchases by themselves, potentially increasing their lifetime value to your business.
Sites hosted on WooCommerce and Shopify have a vast array of options for implementing live and automated chat functions that can significantly enhance your startup or SME’s customer support capabilities. If implemented correctly, these systems could allow your site to address customer concerns and direct them through your checkout process 24/7.
Create a Flawless Online Payment Experience with the Maya Checkout Plugin for WooCommerce
WooCommerce’s expansive plugin library, supportive developer community, and selection of localized solutions have made it one of the most important e-commerce platforms in the Philippine market, particularly among startups and SMEs. If your site is on this platform, your business can sustainably build a loyal online following and boost its sales simply by using Maya payment gateway solutions, the best WooCommerce payment gateway Philippines has to offer.
To access Maya Checkout plugins for WooCommerce, Shopify, and other major e-commerce site platforms, create your Maya Business account today. Creating a Maya Business account also lets you sign up for the Maya 1-2-3 Grow bundle, an exclusive promo designed especially for Philippine-based startups and SMEs.
Maya 1-2-3 Grow lets you save on online payment processing with a 1% MDR (merchant discount rate) on QR Ph sales for 3 months from promo onboarding. Opening a Maya Deposit account and designating it as your payment settlement account entitles you to an additional month of 1% MDR, potentially saving you thousands of pesos in transaction fees. Joining Maya 1-2-3 Grow also qualifies you for a no-collateral Maya Flexi Loan offer of up to PHP 2 million in just 3 months or less. Create a Maya Business account today to take advantage of these exclusive benefits.
