The main objective of your business is to close sales and make profit. However, having a very well-designed website won’t cut it in a market as large and diverse as is the Latin American market. Neither will a “one-size-fits-all” or confusing feature-rich approaches work. The checkout process, an area that many international merchants overlook, is a highly crucial step and one where many customers give up from completing their purchases for a plethora of different reasons, thus leading to lower conversion rates.

The big “L” (for “Local”)

Unlike the European Union, which is an economically and politically organized region, Latin America remains a fragmented market. Extra steps need to be taken to meet the requirements of the customers of each country in the region by removing as many obstacles as possible from the checkout process and by creating advantages for both you and your customers so that you can increase your checkout conversion rates. To turn online visitors into paying customers, users need to have a better overall experience in an environment that feels natural, friendly and functional. Therefore, more than thinking global, think of the letter “L”, which stands for “Localization”. In the words of João Narciso, account manager at BoaCompra, “When going global, you shall always think local too.”

Local language

Communicating in the language of your target audience adds to the customer experience and helps you reach a wider audience with minimal effort. Furthermore, customers are more likely to build trust in you if your product descriptions are in their own language and if the user interface of your website reflects their needs and cultural sensitivities.

Local currency

Consumers prefer to buy in their local currency. Successfully converting online users into paying shoppers means properly localizing prices to their local currency preferences instead of showing prices in a foreign currency. Another advantage would be to enable customers that don’t reside in the region your website is localized for the option to change the currency of prices to the one they are more familiar with. For example, BoaCompra deals with 7 different currencies in LATAM and provides the services needed for currency localization.

Local payments

In a previous article, we wrote about how to Reduce LATAM Shopping Cart Abandonment with Local Payment Solutions. One of the main reasons for checkout abandonment is when customers have the frustrating experience of not finding their preferred payment methods. It as simple as: the more payment methods you can offer on your website, the more market coverage you achieve. In LATAM, local payments make all the difference as each country has their own system. Added together, there are over a hundred different payment methods. If your business cannot provide them, you are missing out on a big portion of the profits.

Going deeper

According to The Baymard Institute, there are plenty of other reasons for shopping cart abandonments during checkout. Here are a few tips we have researched that can help you increase conversions rates at checkout.

• Remove extra clutter from the page by reducing the amount of form fields.
• Limit navigational features and hide obvious links that would make them leave the page.
• Don’t add information about other products or reviews. Keep it simple and about finishing the transaction
• Be transparent and don’t surprise the consumer with unexpected fees later down the line.
• Offer a “Checkout As Guest” option as many shoppers don’t want to sign up just to make a purchase.
• Ensure your site loads information quickly and doesn’t keep the customer waiting.
• Make a “mobile-friendly” version or use design that adapts well to mobile screen formats.
• Emphasize and show clearly the security of your payment system or gateway.

Getting support

Getting the support, expertise and experience of payment aggregators such as BoaCompra can be a fundamental step towards checkout optimization.

They can:

• Assist the partner/merchant to sell in the local currency.
• Customize sales packages, adapting the prices to the reality of the national currency.
• Help you understand the dynamics of the markets under scrutiny.
• Provide checkout buttons, integrating payments by category (cards, cash, transfers, etc.)
• Provide dedicated customer support with experience in the markets under scrutiny.
• Set up Secure Payment Gateways.

Ready to start now? Get in touch with us to learn how BoaCompra can help your company expand to this promising market: