I has written several times about the development of Papataka.com, one of the service provider for buying e-book. Papataka also has dedicated e-reader device that enables users to access Papataka directly from the device.
Now, there is a new development from Papataka.com, they do not only sell e-book but also non digital stuffs such as organic food, coffee, toys, clothes, children clothing, and many other stuffs. Actually I already read the news about it last week from their advertisement on the Indonesian edition of Bloomberg Businessweek magazine where they advertise about their new services. On the latest edition of the magazine, Papataka.com advertise many other things that can be bought besides e-books.
Then I tried to get the information about it from Papataka representation. As explained by Mr. Kaliman, the product diversification on Papataka has been going for about a month. This strategy is chosen since Papataka wants to give other services to their costumer. “We fell quite succeeded to give service for Indonesian users by e-book product and service. Then we come into a question what we can do to give more service to our customers. Therefore, we decided to give other services to our customers by providing non-ebooks products.”
For the non e-book products, Papataka tightly selected the products. It is done for keeping the products’ quality. At a glance, I see that some of product provided (non-ebook) are premium products, Mr. Kaliman explained that quality is more important than the price and the advertisement. Papataka keeps offering the cheapest price (maybe compared to other market place) as their strategy on selling e-book.
Although it launched not more than a month ago, the purchasing of non e-book products is increasing, besides customers still buy e-book.
The increasing number of products provided can be one of Papataka’s strategies to widen their business scope. As long as customers want it, the business scope can be widening. However, it is important to pay attention on the development to keep the brand image on costumer mind; don’t let it be confused because of the new service since the main product of Papataka is e-book.
The addition of new product lines can be seen as Papataka’s plan to be more complete e-commerce service, not only for e-book, regardless that the number of products provided by now. Delivery service is also one of the important things on e-commerce business. Besides selling e-book, Pataka also sell e-reader device that needs to be delivered. Therefore, Pataka collaborates with TIKI and RPX to manage products delivery.
As mentioned, I saw this Papataka’s strategy as a step to enter new market and as a consideration on their costumers’ needs. Their costumers, mostly, are middle high (according to e-book and other products’ price). Surely, it is not the sign of Indonesian e-book market’s flagging but more about a strategy to widen targeted market and is done for the sake of business development.
Picture taken from Bloomberg Businessweek magazine 36th edition | 17th – 23rd November 2011
