A survey conducted by Redseer, a management consulting company, reveals that the COVID-19 pandemic has a positive impact on the e-commerce sector in Indonesia. The e-commerce platforms have welcomed a new cohort of consumers who were accustomed to shopping in stores but are unable to do so now due to social distancing measures put forth by the country’s government. Consequently, they turned to online platforms for purchasing items of daily use such as food and personal care products.
A new popular category is homegrown e-groceries marketplaces and the beauty, fashion and personal care segment also registered a rise during the first quarter of 2020. The growth rate of beauty, fashion and personal care this year is expected to outpace electronics, which has been previously the key growth contributor across e-commerce platforms. However, electronics will continue to be important, with Redseer expecting household appliances and personal care products to be the leading growth categories in the short to medium term.
E-commerce players have been responding to the move of new customers flocking into their platforms. Bukalapak, for example, has been forging partnership with fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) brands. Tokopedia saw more than doubled sellers within the health and personal care category in March 2020. These customers are predicted to continue their online behavior, even after COVID-19.
Indonesia’s e-commerce growth is projected to remain positive, reaching USD 35 billion in 2020. In a 2019 report, Google, Temasek and Bain & Company, made a pre-COVID projection that the country’s internet economy would cross Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) of USD 130 billion by 2025, from USD 21 billion in 2019.
(Source: The Jakarta Post)
