One of Indonesia’s famous e-commerce site for electronics, Bhinneka recently launched a sub-service under their site called Bhinneka Travel. The content of the website, as you probably guessed, is related to hotel room search and travel packages affiliated with hotel deal search company, HotelsCombined.
Bhinneka’s CEO Hendrik Tio said that recently his company has been asked for travel services from its corporate clients for Bhinneka’s electronics and computer business. As you probably know, corporate clients is Bhinneka’s main consumer for its electronics and computer business. “It just so happen that HotelsCombined offered us an affiliate-model with very little effort from our side, so might as well”, Tio said.
In the midst of the fierce competition amongst local travel sites, Bhinneka with their existing and well-spending corporate clients reduced the risk as well as leverage Bhinneka from other travel startups that has to start from scratch. Tio thinks Bhinneka’s travel business is a low-risk business because its team has been focusing on maintaining existing clients. “For the first step we just want to focus on serving our existing customer, no higher target”, Tio added.
When asked about Bhinneka Travel’s promotion strategi, Tio stated that he will still use the old conventional offline approach to its corporate clients. Tio is currently in a wait-and-see mode for Bhinneka Travel’s future plan, “We’ll see how it goes before we plan anything aggressive”.
Beside hotels, Bhinneka Travel will also soon add flight component to its service and will most likely using the same business model, affiliate marketing. Interviewed via email, Tio said that they already received a few offers from potential partners, “we’re still looking for a suitable business model”.
–
This e-commerce channel is brought to you by Veritrans Indonesia. Veritrans makes online transactions easier, faster and more secure. No setup fee, no monthly fee and no hidden fee. To know more about Veritrans Indonesia, please visit their website http://veritrans.co.id
