The potential of C2C market in Indonesia is still extremely huge. People still use social media to promote their products, not to mention the fact that they’re still concentrated only in Jakarta and Java. There are still abundant of spaces there.
There are more and more marketplace platforms that establish their own company, like Tokopedia, OLX, and Bukalapak. Puali, an online marketplace from Surabaya, is a classified ads website that combines Twitter’s social component with e-commerce.
Ever since December 2014, Puali has seen its number of registered users being doubled. In three months, the number of members went up from 3500 to 7000. This goes along with the upgrade of classified ads it posts, as there are 82.315 registered ads and keep counting, compared to 33.500 ads in December 2014.
The startup was founded by two individuals: Triandy Gunawan as the CEO and Stefanus Christofan as the CTO. “We have yet had any external investors now. Puali will enter marketplace segment, not only classified ads as today,” Christofan said.
Puali plans to keep increaing the number of its members by doing offline marketing campaigns. The closest event would be an entrepreneurial seminar in Surabaya, which is scheduled to be held regularly.
Another Puali’s target would be to continuously develop its website and mobile apps. There are 5057 Puali’s Android mobile app users so far, while 571 decide to use the iOS version of the app.
From DailySocial’s early observation, Puali has yet had any business model. There is no ads banner seen on the website. At the moment, Puali is planning to launch a premium ads service in this coming March 2015. Christofan also stated that they will monetize by posting banners on the page.
“We receive 5000 ads per week. Around 280 new users register every week. From 14 categories we offer, fashion becomes people’s favorite,” Christofen concluded.
