eCommerce Continue to rise despite Rupiah weakens

Ilustrasi (dok)

JAKARTA (IndoTelko) - This year's eCommerce business is expected to remain to rise despite the Rupiah condition against the US dollar continues to weaken.

"We are optimistic that this year the industry could grow as in previous years. Because eCommerce in Indonesia is still contributing about 1% for the retail sector," said Tiket.com Managing Director Gaery Undarsa last week.

Undarsa said that the current eCommerce in Indonesia is still in the growing phase that has not reach its peak yet.

"We are optimistic that e-commerce industry will always grow in the coming five years ahead, the growth could even reach two to three times per year, despite the national economic growth is stagnant," he said.

The current e-commerce market in Indonesia is only around US $ 1.3 billion, or just 1% of the total retail market in Indonesia. In the next five years is expected to grow to US $ 20 billion-US $ 30 billion, or 5% -8% of the total retail sales.

"The great potential is driven by the changes in lifestyle in which people start to switch from offline to online shopping. The shift is higher than the economic downturn," he said.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mataharimall.com Hadi Wenas added that the Rupiah weakening do not significantly affect the purchasing power of Indonesian people to shop online.

"I think it does not significantly affect either the economic downturn and the weakening of rupiah because all products are sold in dollars. Moreover, all of the products we sell are people's everyday basic needs," he said.

He was optimistic that the eCommerce market is still growing above 50% this year. "It can be seen from the number of visitors and the increasing transactions from day to day. So it does not actually affected by dollars because people are still enjoying this new trend of shopping online," he said.

Head of Communications bukalapak.com Yusi H Obon saud that the portal growth is more than three times compared to last year. Bukalapak now has 250 thousand members with 3,000 transactions per day with the business growth target up to 20%.

Elevenia Vice President Marketing Madeliene Ong De Guzman said that she will continue to improve the efficiency despite the increasing amount of traffic and transactions.

For example, if the target is only reached 110%, the company must remain 130% efficient. The addition of human resources such as customer service (CS), sales and platform remains the primary consideration.

Currently, Elevenia has already 2 million members, 9,000 sellers, with transaction number ranging 15 thousand per day. Elevenia have posted Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) of Rp 100 billion in June 2015 and is predicted to rise to Rp 130 billion in July.

This Axiata's subsidiary revised its transactions targets from the previously set at Rp1.1 trillion, up 50% to Rp1.3 trillion. Elevenia considering the revision with significant growth in the first six months achieved by the company. "In the first half alone, we've achieved more than 50% of the total sales target," she added. (Id)