Indonesian e-commerce market doesn’t only catch the attention of local players. Singapore Post, a Singapore-based logistic company that gets involved in e-commerce recently by establishing the SP E-Commerce, published a white paper talking about the Indonesian e-commerce landscape in 2014. This insight might serve as an excellent guide to those who intend to enter Indonesian e-commerce.
For those who’ve been in the industry for quite a while, there might not be anything new presented in the paper, but it would be much more insightful to those who are about to step into the jungle. The information covered by the paper include the big picture and prediction of the number of internet users in Indonesia, influence of social media to the internet access behavior, and selected methods for online shopping.
The plenty number of youngsters in Indonesia is the most influencing factor to e-commerce growth. However, the slow adoption and implementation of technology definitely hamper everything. One of most interesting facts stated in the paper mentioned that Amazon was the most popular e-commerce platform in 2013, despite the fact that the U.S giant has yet had its infrastructure established in Indonesia. This year, Amazon had a fleet of tough competitors, such as Lazada, Zalora, Rakuten Belanja Online, OLX, Kaskus, and Tokopedia.
One noteworthy thing is the payment method that Indonesians prefer. According to Vela Asia e-commerce enabler, 57% of consumers in the country still preferred bank transfer, while 28% of them regarded Cash On Delivery (COD) as the most convenient payment method. Meanwhile, payment through credit cards was only preferred by 7% of the consumers.
Another main point that the paper emphasized was in regard to the logistic support for e-commerce businesses to succeed. Prior to this, Singapore Post and Pos Indonesia have partnered to ensure the distribution and delivery of goods in the region.
The complete version of the paper can be downloaded here.
