In e-commerce, it’s not unusual for customers to put items in their carts or wishlists and leave them there indefinitely. If you’re familiar with the classic AIDA sales funnel model, you’ll find that many online customers will arrive fairly quickly at the “interest” and “desire” stages but they often take their time before they move onto the final “action” stage where they initiate their purchase.
If you have an e-commerce business, this isn’t exactly ideal, as your potential customers may forget their items or find other alternatives in the meantime. As much as possible, you’ll want to encourage visitors going through your store to only leave after they have purchased something.
In this short guide, we’ll look at a few popular strategies that encourage impulse purchases among consumers in the Philippine market. By implementing these ideas, you can encourage customers to make spontaneous purchases or, at the very least, speedier decisions, ultimately increasing your site’s conversion rates and revenue.
1) Offer Hassle-Free Online Payment Processing
More and more Filipino buyers are abandoning cash in favor of digital wallets, virtual payment cards, and other cashless payments. With so many different payment choices in the market, your online payments gateway has to be fully capable of facilitating whatever method a customer prefers.
In the Philippine market, Maya Checkout is widely considered to be the best online payment processing solution for businesses of all sizes. It’s also the third-party payment gateway Shopify and WooCommerce stores in the Philippines depend on, thanks to its simple integration via Maya Plugins. Integrating Maya Checkout into your e-commerce site ensures every customer can have their online payment processed without a hitch, encouraging more spur-of-the-moment purchases.
2) Save Customer Form Information
It’s widely considered best practice to save your customer’s key personal and payment details so that they can save time when making subsequent purchases. Implementing this practice is strongly correlated with a reduction in cart abandonments and an overall better customer experience. So long as you stay compliant with the Data Privacy Act of 2012 and other laws governing personal data usage, you should save customer data to facilitate impulse purchases.
3) Give Visitors a Guest Checkout Option
Many potential customers do not want to have to create a new user account, especially if they believe they will only need a few items. Moreover, some customers dislike the idea of their personal data being saved on an e-commerce site. Fortunately, you can still cater to these individuals by offering a simplified guest checkout option. With fewer forms to go through, you can better encourage on-the-spot purchases from these individuals.
4) Offer Alternative Internet Payment Solutions
In the Philippines, a large proportion of e-commerce acitivity is conducted over social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. As a result, many buyers may prefer to purchase over these channels rather than on your e-commerce site. In this case, you can turn your social media properties into sales channels through Maya Payment Links and Invoice Payments. Offering these payment options over social media, messaging apps, or email ensures that you’re able to cater to customers who prefer these sales pathways.
5) Provide a High-Quality Sensory Experience
According to a 2022 study by Ipsos, sensory inputs are a key factor in driving people towards making impulse purchases online. The study recommends using high-quality audiovisual productions to help potential customers understand the physical qualities of a product they’re interested in. The study further recommends “bigger, zoomed-in images,” “sounds or descriptions of product usage that are only experienced closely,” as well as detailed sales copy that describes the feel, taste, and smell of a product offer.
6) Reinforce Value with Social Proof and Endorsements
Filipino buyers are often driven by value. However, value-based purchases are often implied to be less trustworthy, which may slow down purchasing decisions. Offering social proof or endorsements by trusted celebrities can help validate a product’s perceived value and reinforce the decision to buy. If you do choose to go with a celebrity endorsement, make sure to choose someone whose brand matches well with your own.
7) Gamify the Shopping Experience
Gamification imbues shopping experiences with new elements that reward buyers. Filipino online shoppers are now rather familiar with gamified elements such as limited-time offers, giveaways, social media sharing incentives, and so on. This method has proven to be highly effective at accelerating customer purchase decisions and encouraging repeat purchases, making it well worth considering for any business-to-consumer e-commerce operation.
8) Offer Free Shipping
Free shipping continues to be a serious draw for Filipino customers, especially given the market’s strong preference for value. According to a recent report by TGM Research, 65% of online shoppers in the Philippines consider low prices and free shipping to be the most important deciding factors for their purchases. While offering free shipping might cost you something in the short term, you can always offset your base prices and rely on the added sales to compensate.
Increase Impulse Buys with Maya Business Online Payment Solutions
Maya Business has earned a reputation as an online payment processing company that understands the Philippine market. With online payment solutions like Maya Checkout, Payment Links, and Invoice Payments, you can be sure that your e-commerce business has what it takes to spur spontaneous purchases. Create your Maya Business Manager account today to activate Maya Checkout and online payment platforms from Maya Business.
After signing up for Maya Business Manager, you’ll get exclusive access to the Maya 1-2-3 Grow bundle. Maya 1-2-3 Grow gives you a 1% MDR (merchant discount rate) discount on all QR Ph transactions, for 3 months after onboarding. This transaction fee discount saves you PHP 14,600 for every PHP 1 million in QR Ph sales, allowing you to effortlessly save money to grow your e-commerce business.
As part of the Maya 1-2-3 Grow bundle, you’ll also be able to open a Maya Business Deposit account for your transaction settlements. Maya Business Deposit’s 2.5% per annum interest rate ensures you’ll get an extra PHP 25,000 per year on a PHP 1 million deposit. Maya Business Deposit’s zero maintaining balance and free transfers via InstaPay and PesoNET also give you extra savings on daily transactions.
Maya 1-2-3 Grow also entitles you to a Maya Flexi Loan offer as large as PHP 2 million. Just use Maya Business as your primary online payment processing service provider to improve your potential loan offer.
Apply for a Maya Business Manager account today to boost impulse purchases and enjoy the exclusive Maya 1-2-3 Grow bundle.
