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E-commerce certainly enjoys a thriving market in a country like the Philippines. According to data gathering platform Statista, there were around 13 million e-commerce users in 2023, and this number is projected to grow to a staggering 31 million by 2029. Thanks to the availability of cashless payments and e-wallets such as Maya, paying for online purchases has also never been more convenient for a customer.
There’s no doubt that having an e-commerce storefront for your business or operating exclusively online can significantly help you reach more customers. But given how fast the e-commerce landscape is continuously evolving, you should also be aware of how much you’ll need to future-proof your website—particularly if you want to be able to manage it even while you’re away on business travels.
Here are some steps you can take to ensure that your online store will always be up to speed and that you can manage it flexibly from wherever you’re doing business:
1) Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly
Many shoppers access the internet through their mobile devices. As such, if your store looks clunky or, worse, isn’t even functional at all on a mobile screen, chances are, you’re losing a good chunk of your earning potential.
Making sure that your e-commerce site is optimized to be viewed on any mobile device is a must to future-proof it. Check that your site scales to different screen sizes without losing key features such as the search option, checkout buttons, and your overall branding design. In addition to being convenient to your customers, it can also be beneficial to you when you’re traveling, as you can easily and accurately view pages on your store through your mobile device in case you need to check on them.
2) Expand Your Accepted Payment Options
Nowadays, customers expect to be given more options when it comes to paying for their purchases. This is because in addition to cash, they may have funds stored in other platforms as well as in their mobile bank accounts or e-wallets.
For e-commerce entrepreneurs in the Philippines, Maya offers reliable online payment solutions that you can integrate with your e-commerce site to make payment more convenient and reliable for customers. Maya Checkout will allow you to accept payment through credit or debit cards and e-wallets, and Maya Payment Links lets you generate unique payment links to send directly to your customers’ preferred messaging apps. These upgrades to your payment processes will ensure both timely payments and a healthy cash flow for future operations.
In the coming years, make sure your e-commerce site continues to expand its accepted payment options. After all, you don’t want your customer to reach the checkout stage only to abandon their cart when they see that your store isn’t accepting their preferred payment mode. Commit to offering your customers a wealth of options so that they feel more empowered to do their online shopping in the way that works best for them.
3) Add Videos on Product Listings
Keep in mind that you will continuously compete with a lot of other online stores. In addition to price points, the media included in your listings can also serve as a deciding factor for customers to choose your store’s products over others.
Adding videos to your product listings is one way to better market your products, as it gives you more freedom to showcase them. This can also engage people who are on the fence about purchasing, seeing as how a video can better demonstrate the product’s features compared to static photos of it.
This can also extend to other video formats such as livestreaming, which has become increasingly popular in e-commerce platforms as well. If you can accommodate them, more avenues for video content can future-proof your site now that online shoppers are seeking more interactive media to accompany product listings.
4) Set Up an AI Shopping Assistant Feature
Artificial intelligence (AI) has started to become more commonplace in the e-commerce industry, often for analyzing customer shopping behavior and for automation purposes. You can onboard AI solutions for these, and you can also set up shopping assistant chatbots to achieve a faster and more customized shopping experience for your customers.
Your AI chatbot, in particular, can be programmed to answer common questions, provide instant customer support round the clock, and recommend related products to your customers according to their recent purchases. Even if you’re short-staffed or on a business trip, you can rest assured that your customers’ inquiries will still be answered.
Implementing AI technology will also position your business as forward-thinking, which can be a huge plus to customers. Knowing that, see what it will cost and what you should do to onboard useful new AI technologies as soon as possible.
5) Utilize Remote Management Tools
There may be times when you can’t be physically around to manage your business. But this doesn’t mean that your store has to be out of action. Investing in technology such as cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems will allow you full control over your e-commerce store operations so long as you’re connected to the internet.
Modern ERP systems come with dashboards or modules where you can easily manage orders, check your inventory, and make sense of your store’s money matters. This flexibility will allow you and other authorized staff to quickly check and settle orders even when you’re not on business premises.
If you’ve signed up for them, you can also use tools like the Maya Business Manager dashboard to manage payments related to your business, allowing you to stay on top of your finances wherever you are. Remote management tools like these will allow you to future-proof your e-commerce site, especially for those moments when you’ll be away on travel but want to keep your operations running smoothly.
6) Strengthen Your Store Security
Identity theft and having their financial information stolen are among the top worries of online shoppers. Regularly strengthening your e-commerce site’s security features can offer assurance to them while also protecting your online assets and properties from future cyber threats.
Offer features such as two-factor authentication for your customers’ accounts, improve your site’s data encryption, and make sure that your checkout pages—especially where customers are supposed to input their payment information—come with additional layers of security. These efforts will do a lot to future-proof both your store operations and your reputation.
It’s not enough to simply run an online store for your business. That same web property also has to be equipped with features that can keep up with the fast-paced e-commerce environment of both tomorrow and today. The steps above should help you improve upon your current e-commerce operations and sustain them for the foreseeable future.
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