SME (Small Medium Enterprises) and Internet : an ‘Old Song’ or New Chance?

There are two press release came to wire@dailysocial last week. Both of them give information about SME, one of them is SITTI and another is Belibu.com.

In their press release, SITTI explain that they are preparing initiative for SME (Small and Medium Enterprises) in Indonesia through SITTI359. This program will collaborate with Satutempat.com. The initiative is called as “Kedai UKM SITTI”. It is an end to end solution for SME to improve their selling through digital marketing. This program will be launched in October 2011, the video about it has been released on August 17^th, 2011.

Meanwhile Belibu.com gives online media service and get local entrepreneur and SME as the target, also as their users’ reference. Belibu.com also provides facilities such as writing review on enterprises then upload it to their website.

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Store.co.id Broadens Its Free Delivery Scope Area

Store.co.id, an online clothing store provides free delivery service for its customers. The free delivery facility is provided for area of Java-Bali also for big cities in Sumatera, Kalimantan, and NTB. From press release sent to DailySocial, this program has been provided since last year. Nevertheless, recently it broadens the service scope area not only for Java and Bali but also for some other cities.

This free delivery service is provided by Store.co.id as one facility for its costumers and as the answer for the problem of reluctant order from customer because of the delivery cost which makes the higher price of the product.

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HijUp.com, E-Commerce Platform for Muslim Clothing

Now you can celebrate Ramadhan without having stuck in traffic to Tanah Abang or ITC to get beautiful Muslim clothing (hijab). HijUp.com founded by Diajeng Lestari offers comfortable ecommerce platform in shopping Muslim clothing.

HijUp.com has owned 14 partners in 13 categories on their early launching. According to Diajeng, every designer can join HijUp.com as long as they can guarantee their product quality. Therefore, HijUp.com always conduct detail selection on every product before receiving and putting them on the display.

On the press release, Diajeng explained that Indonesia has a huge market size of Muslim clothing. The transaction can reach US$ 10 billion a year. The amount is believed to increase along with the Indonesia’s GDP of $3.000 considering the fact that Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world.

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GMarket, Another Foreign E-Commerce in Indonesia

Gmarket is definitely not part of Google like Gmail. Gmarket came from Korea and made news when acquired by e-commerce giant, eBay, in 2009 for $1.2 billion. In may 2010, eBay and Gmarket founder Young Bae Ku, expanded to Singapore and Japan in joint venture mode where eBay has over 49% ownership. After one year and feeling steady in both countries, in May 2011 Gmarket is expanding again, and this time they’re aiming for Malaysia and Indonesia.

Gmarket in Indonesia is foreign invested, fully controlled by Korea where most people here is sales representatives. This is different than how Rakuten enters Indonesia, by collaborating with MNC in form of joint venture. One of Gmarket plus point in Indonesia for merchant is the choice to linkage with other countries that has Gmarket, except Korea.

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MySellr.com is Ready for Indonesian Market

One Swedish company owned by Indonesian, MySellr.com, is preparing to enter the market and serve the users in Indonesia. Mysellr is an online shopping platform, today, is integrated with Facebook, these services provide facilities that could make a Facebook page of the brand owner or retailer into an online store with various facilities.

Mysellr provide services for users who want to sell on Facebook, but with the look and amenities like a regular online store, a facility that can later be used by the users, setting the stock of goods, and shopping cart facilities, management of goods and invoice management.

The display in your store will also show your logo and store information, the search field, category of goods, delivery options services, payment methods and various other facilities include a facility to make special offerings when there are discounts of products or goods. Currently their service is limited to Facebook Store, but if you look at their site, there will also be Facebook Marketplace facilities.

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The Problem With Indonesia’s E-Commerce Scene

Apparently, Indonesia is famous not only for the huge portion of mobile market, but also for anything social, e-commerce and games. Lots of people been showing interest with e-commerce in Indonesia, last year was the year of Indonesian e-commerce with more than 20 e-commerce companies launched. And of course, a lot went down to the deadpool leaving incumbents like Rakuten, TokoBagus, Plasa, Berniaga, Kemana, Tokopedia etc.

But so far, none of these companies have huge success in the huge market and huge opportunity. There are several problem encountered by these companies in order to run their business, I’ll try to talk some of the issues.

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Rakuten Belanja Online Finally Launched

Japan’s largest online commerce company Rakuten has officially launched Rakuten Belanja Online in Indonesia with Media Nusantara Citra (MNC) Group as its local partner. Rakuten Belanja Online or RBO is the company’s latest move to dominate the global online marketplace.

RBO’s marketplace had been active since March of this year but plans of the launch had to be postponed following the earthquake in Japan later that month.

Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani said, “RBO is expected to contribute to the growth of Indonesia’s e-commerce by empowering merchants and consumers through the power of the internet”.

The joint venture agreement with MNC Group as its partner ultimately came down to the size and reach of the group as a media powerhouse. According to MNC Group CEO Hary Tanoesoedibjo, the aim of the cooperation is to turn RBO into the country’s number one online mall by combining Rakuten’s expertise and experience with his group’s significant presence in the media industry which spans across television, radio, and print. Continue reading Rakuten Belanja Online Finally Launched

DS Research: How Indonesia’s Youngsters Use E-Commerce (Free Download)

The growing number of daily deals sites and e-marketplace founded in Indonesia marks the early growth of Indonesia’s internet lifestyle adoption. Driven by its huge social networking growth throughout the past 3 years, a big question emerges : is Indonesia ready for e-commerce?

This report shows data from our survey to Indonesia’s youngsters on how they use e-commerce, their behavior, their preferences, can how the industry can improve based on what the consumer’s info. This report is free to download, and free to distribute as long as no alteration is made including the credits to DS Research (dsresearch.net).

Download this report here.

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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