Two days in a row, on Wednesday and Thursday, two fashion e-commerce stores are launched in Indonesia. On Wednesday, Suitmedia launched Scallope while PT. M3 Indonedia launched Laavaa on Thursday. Both fashion e-commerce enliven the competition of fashion e-commerce.
Previously, there are already BelowCepek, LocalBrand, Zalora, FimelaShop and Ratimaya on the market. Although specializing and targeting in different market, surely there are cross-sections of those who play in this field.
As reported in the press release, Scallope mentions that it provides various fashion products from leading young designers in Indonesia. Scallope is trying to answer the public’s need of modern, authentic, high quality and affordable Indonesian fashion product. With such product, Scallope’s target market is 16-35 years old male and female, student, employee and manager.
Laavaa provides a collection of limited edition male and female clothing from both local and international designers. Kompas Female reports that Laavaa’s market is not only in Indonesia but also reaching the international market to the United States, Canada, Malaysia, Taiwan and Singapore. With the price range of IDR200,000 to IDR2.1 million, Laavaa seems to targeting higher market than Scallope.
LocalBrand displays local brands for male and female, FimelaShop brings branded products not only for fashion but also household utensils; Zalora and Ratimaya both display local and international brands for male and female. The slightly unique one is BelowCepek which has a concept to bring local fashion product under IDR100,000.
With the lively competition, chosen niche market obviously becomes one of the main points of the success of e-commerce stores. Each of e-commerce sites has its own consideration in determining the target market and product it sells. However, whether the target fits online shopper’s character in Indonesia needs more attention. Several groups of age and economy classes may choose to shop in a mall as well as sightseeing. Some of the products are also unfit to sell online. Looking at the reason of the groups which shop online, it’s important to choose a target market and the product for sale.
Indonesian market is big and varies, as well as unique. A business model applied in other market is not guaranteed to be able to grow in Indonesia. E-commerce business that can judge Indonesian market will be able to survive and grow.
