1. Indonesia set to position Batam as shipping, manufacturing rival to Singapore. The Straits Times – Feb 1,2019

Batam potentially draws US$60 billion in new investment when Indonesia opens the city to Special Economy Zone (SEZ). Now, the authorities want to expand benefits to businesses by reclaiming about 8,000 hectares around the island as the area.

The Batam free-trade zone consists of eight islands measuring 71,500 hectares. Many companies that operated at the free-trade zone will exempt from VAT and luxury taxes as well the import duties.

This effort created by the central government to increase the investment of the island located just a 1-hour boat ride from Singapore. Indonesia would like to developed Batam as the sister island to support the overgrowth of Singapore in logistic.

Furthermore, many companies also intended to invest in tourism, consumer goods, and shipyard industries ranging from ship manufacturer to ship maintenance company. The government expects that Batam is able to be the gateway to any other cities in Indonesia bypassing Singapore as a transit point.

Batam’s strategic location is the key to the development with another tourism spot such as Nongsa expecting more investors coming in from abroad. Hopefully, with further development of Batam, the Indonesian government able to centralize import rather on relying on Singapore.

2. Bukalapak, an online marketplace company from Indonesia, will soon announce a new round of funding. Techcrunch.com – 18 Jan 2019

The company currently valued at $1 billion and BukaLapak is currently as Indonesia’s fourth unicorn after Gojek, Tokopedia, and Traveloka. With the large economy and high e-commerce transaction, Bukalapak becomes the second e-commerce to enter the billion dollars club.

As it been founded in 2010, BukaLapak daily order reached two million and 50 million of the user. The core value of BukaLapak is from the Small Medium Enterprise, vendors and independent micro-business in Indonesia.

Bukalapak currently with the investor from GIC, Emtek, Alibaba Ant Financial before raising another $50 million series D from Mirae- Naver Asia Growth Fund, which business including Line messaging service in Korea

The company mention that the new funds will help to grow more opportunities and services offered. The current service of Bukalapak also includes fintech products on their website. By offering a wide range of products, Bukalapak able to increase their own revenue and services.

3. Visit LMF(Last Mile Fulfilment) Asia 2019 at Singapore Expo on 27-28 March 2019 – LMF Asia 

LMF Asia is the region largest retail fulfilment event is Asia which connected the retailers, logistics companies, discover the latest innovations, collaborate, and exploring business opportunities between companies. Here around 1600 retailer and leaders able to listen from 70 companies from a wide range of industry and to understand the latest disruptive tech and network with 100 leading solution providers.

In 2019, for the fifth year, come with the theme “reinventing retail fulfilment for an evolving e-commerce environment. There are a series of impact discussion showcasing solution for parcel delivery company, challenges, warehouse automation and inventory management, omnichannel fulfilment, drones, SMART commerce, real-time order tracking, digitalisation and more.

You can expect conference sessions talking range from technology adoption and ROI, optimized service delivery, cross-border e-commerce, latest industry innovations and navigate the changing landscape of domestic delivery.

 

China largest retailer, JD.com, has made the first flight of drone which approved by the Indonesia government to operate for delivery in the rural area for the test flight. The measure that a breakthrough for drone delivery in Southeast Asia. Furthermore, it is a starting point as the new drone technology will be used in the region subjected to every country approval in Southeast Asia.

 

The test flight took place on January 8, 2019, in West Java, Indonesia, where the drone flew from Jagabita Village, Parung Panjang to MIS Nurul Falah Leles Elementary School to deliver backpacks and books to students.

JD.ID currently sells 1 million SKUs and serves more than 20 million consumers across Indonesia covering 483 cities and 6,500 area. The company mention that hopefully when it is approved, it will help the company to speed up delivery orders and able to ship more to the rural area.

Indonesia with comprises of ten of thousand islands needs a breakthrough delivery around the region. As drone technology able to help more to the delivery of rural areas, there are more tests needed to cater to urban area delivery and the efficiency of drones subjected to the municipal city approval.

There might need some more time to fully applied drone technology in Asia especially Indonesia foe e-commerce delivery as currently most of the order come from Greater Jakarta area which is very accessible by a common transportation

Indonesia’s E-commerce Market Larger Than Estimated; Consumer Habits Changing: Study – Jakarta Globe – Feb 5,2019

E-commerce in Indonesia raking 8 percent of total retail sales in 2018 affected by the change of behavior of millennials that considering convenience for the main reason for online purchase.

In the past two years alone, the growth nearing 50 percent for the e-commerce market as in Indonesia there are almost 200 million smartphone users but the online shopper is around 30 million.

The growth will be tremendous as another factor considered as the price of the internet per gigabytes is cheaper almost 4 times compared to China and more people have the bank account to do the online transaction.

Based on the research, apparel is the most stuff that Indonesian buy from e-commerce compare to electronics and mobile devices. Another thing that Indonesian offer are the offers from e-commerce sites and consider the convenience by ordering online compared to offline.

Here now with the technology, the competition between small players able to compete with traditional retailers as by with more offers an option presented to customers. The big 4 of the e-commerce are Lazada, Shopee, Tokopedia, and Bukalapak with cash on delivery option is more preferable towards credit card payment.

The growth expected to keep increasing and Jakarta seems still the main playfield for the e-commerce provider compare to second-tier cities. Furthermore, the brand of tokopedia and bukalapak is well known from the user but lazada still leading the race for the e-commerce industry in Indonesia.

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