Holiday gift-giving made easy at myAyala.com

How do you send 20 gifts to 20 people in different locations around the world when you only have an hour to do your shopping? You shop online.

The Philippines may have a smaller Internet base compared to its wired Asian neighbors, but that may soon change as more Filipinos realize the benefits of online shopping.

myAyala.com, the country’s first online mall, already offers the convenience of one-stop shopping at 75 brand-name retailers with 4,000 products such as flowers (Flowertowne), books (National Bookstore), clothes (Bench, Penshoppe), electronic gadgets (Mobile One) and appliances (Abenson).

Users don’t even have to be Internet-savvy to start online shopping. The myAyala.com website looks much like a catalogue. Shoppers can find a particular item using a search engine or by selecting a category or merchant. With a few clicks of the mouse, they can get a photo, description and price of a product. myAyala.com shoppers are then given the option to pay for their orders through credit card, cash on delivery, or prepaid cash cards which can be bought at selected Ayala Center shops.

Teodoro Limcaoco, chief operating officer of myAyala.com, assures that purchases on the website are protected by 128-bit secure socket layer encryption, the highest standard used for online transactions. This guards the sensitive personal information in credit cards against online theft.

For added security, myAyala.com maintains separate servers in the United States to run the website and to process credit card purchases. "E-commerce technology is so advanced that it’s actually a lot safer to use your credit card online than in the real world," Limcaoco says.

The great news is that there’s no extra cost to consumers, save for credit card surcharges and shipping fees of Aboitiz One or FedEx. myAyala.com requires merchants to keep products at the same price as in actual physical stores.

Online shoppers can also give special instructions for the items they want delivered. For instance, myAyala.com can send a gift on a specific date or gift-wrap books for a small fee.