Rakuten Indonesia Grand Launching June 1, 2011: A Merchant’s Opinion

Rakuten Belanja Online – RBO (official name of Rakuten Indonesia) is a joint venture between Rakuten Japan and MNC Group which will officially (ceremonial wise) operate in Indonesia by having Grand Launching this June 1, 2011. Since its soft launching on March 1, 2011 RBO has managed to attract a lot of merchants in different sectors despite the fact that they have monthly fee (with the first year commitment) to be listed. I happened to have small store there and will try to share my experience during my 3 months membership.

I listed my store to RBO the moment the launching in Indonesia was announced. There was no information whatsoever on the registration requirement. One thing I am certain is that RBO has the best experience in e-commerce in Japan and they have expanded to other countries. I think RBO will have competitive offer to compete with existing e-commerce portal like Juale, Tokopedia, TokoBagus or Plasa.

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Will Doku save us from PayPal’s ridiculous exchange rate?

Doku, an Indonesian credit card processing startup formerly known as NsiaPay, is launching a new product today to bring online payment to not only online merchants but all merchants across the archipelago.

For years many Indonesians have been using PayPal to conduct transactions over the internet especially freelancers who often have overseas clients as it’s the easiest and most accessible payment method across borders even though its customer service can be very difficult to deal with. Unfortunately, the exchange rate used by PayPal is detrimental to users outside of the United States who require to withdraw funds to their bank accounts as it is often set far below the rates set by local banks.

For transactions with overseas clients or institutions, PayPal has become the de facto payment method but for local transactions, PayPal, while practical, is far from being the best choice. Most local electronic transactions are done through bank transfer via internet banking, mobile banking or through ATMs. Unfortunately due to the refusal of Bank Mandiri and BCA, two of the biggest banks in the country, to allow online transactions between their accounts, these methods fail.

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Will Services Like Groupon Now and GrouponLive Arrive in Indonesia?

There are two news from Groupon appeared recently, the first is Groupon Now!. Although these services were featured since late April, but just they just went live a few days ago. Another one is news about joint venture between Groupon and LiveNation which will launch a service for online ticketing.

GrouponNow! gives a more niche offer, not only offering a discount coupon per day but also for certain time. It provides an opportunity for discount seekers to buy tickets when they are going to lunch or some other times. The user can view the offerings on the website or the mobile app. While GrouponLive, although the service is not yet available, it will provide concert tickets / local music events with a blend of facilities from Groupon and LiveNation (Ticketmaster).

Talking about Groupon now also means talking about Indonesia, because Groupon now has acquired Disdus which is coming to serve the Indonesian market. The question is whether these two services will also be implemented in Indonesia?

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Is It Time to Develop Application for BlackBerry PlayBook?

BlackBerry PlayBook, recent Tablet from Research in Motion (RIM), starts to show more of its development. Since released for US and Canada market last April, RIM has given updates related to OS and its application.

Although we can’t compare it directly with iPad which now dominating tablet market, generally I see that when compared to Android’s Honeycomb which released earlier this year but still shows no significant improvement in market, PlayBook feels more aspired with its innovations.

There are at least 4 BlackBerry PlayBook applications we’ve featured on DailySocial. They are Kompas Editor’s Choice from Kompas, Vroom by Elasitas and Agate, Animal Choirs by Tempa Labs, and the one still waiting for official release, Koprol for PlayBook. The question is now, will you – as mobile developer- be thought as missing the party if you haven’t develop any product for BlackBerry Playbook?

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Seeking for or Wanted by Investor?

A while ago Rama wrote about topics related to the investor, and I quite agree that growth of investors will continue to rise this year in Indonesia.

But one thing is still in my mind is about how they – these investors – approaching the startups in Indonesia. About the approach taken by them upon newly emerging or already existing startups.
This article cannot be widely and completely records how investors approach the startup, but at least could give a brief overview of the experiences I got at an Asian level event that also brings some startup in Jakarta some time ago.

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Could Android’s NFC Become Indonesia’s e-Payment Solution?

Google’s Android handsets have been growing in popularity in Indonesia, just like in other countries where they can get a smartphone with relatively lower price compared to the iPhone. And to make things interesting, last year Eric Schmidt announced Android Gingerbread’s support for NFC (Near Field Communication) and of course payment is most likely to be the main usage.

In Indonesia, e-payment has been always an issue with almost no e-payment solution working properly. The reason? The users simply have no interest of using e-payment solution and quite happy with manual bank transfer which might be caused by the lack of service that’s easy enough for common user to use, e-payment requires to much hassle compared to e-banking or m-banking.

But of course, this can be easily disrupted.

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Kaskus: Business and Community Loyalty

Many of you must’ve heard what happened to Kaskus recently, that 5 of their moderators submitted their resignation at the same time, all of the sudden. It happened shortly after the news that Kaskus and GDP Ventures announced their partnership in order to bring Kaskus to the new and higher level.

These two events happening the previous after the latter brings out rumor that the resignation was due to Kaskus’ management refusing to “pay” the voluntary moderators after receiving fund. Andrew Darwis, CTO and founder of Kaskus immediately clarified the news by saying that the resignation of the moderators has nothing to do with the rumor.

Shortly afterward the said moderators release their official statement basically confirming what Andrew stated, that they do not ask for anything financially from Kaskus. The problem was solved quickly but it seems some people used this rumor to ruin Kaskus’ reputation.

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Tech VC Activities On The Rise As Indonesia’s GDP Increase 6.5%

For the past few months VCs from the technology industries from all around the globe is visiting Jakarta to see the landscape, see if they can do something here in Indonesia. Indonesia has been standing under the spotlight ever since the Koprol-Yahoo and Disdus-Groupon acquisition, and also a huge contribution from the country’s amazing economic growth for the past few years, enabling investment security for all sectors including tech. As reported by MalaysiaInsider (quoting from Reuters), Indonesia’s GDP grow 6.5% in Q1 this year. Driven by strong consumption and investment, making Indonesia the biggest economy in South East Asia.

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DealKeren Launched Mobile Web Version

One of popular daily deals sites in Indonesia, DealKeren launched mobile web version to accommodate cellphone users. According to Nia Anchali, Business Development Head DealKeren, the update was displayed since two weeks ago. Unfortunately DealKeren do not have a blog post that explains “story” behind this mobile web version. You can check mobile look of DealKeren here.

I think it’ll be better if the system can detect automatically visitors that come from cellphone browser and direct them immediately to mobile web without having to have special folder (mobile) for this.

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