Sirclo Chat Facilitates Direct Buying and Selling Services via WhatsApp

Sirclo has just announced the arrival of its newest product called Sirclo Chat. The presence of this new product also marks the celebration of the 7th anniversary of the company. To note, Sirclo Chat is a service that can help thousands of brands and small and medium business owners buy and sell directly via WhatsApp.

This service is here considering the growing trend of conversation-based buying and selling among Indonesian consumers. “Therefore, we have prepared the Sirclo Chat service which allows sellers to integrate and display their product catalogs in the Whatsapp chat room, and consumers can immediately make purchases,” said CEO of Sirclo, Brian Marshal in an official statement, Saturday (19/9/2020).

The use of WhatsApp itself is supported by the Digital 2019 Report from Hootsuite and We Are Social. The report shows WhatsApp is the second most widely used application for Indonesians. In addition, WhatsApp’s high penetration causes a shift in consumer behavior. So, consumers now want online store admins to be responsive and accommodating on WhatsApp.

This trend, according to Sirclo, started chat commerce or conversation-based buying and selling transactions. The better the WhatsApp admin responds and the more practical the buying and selling process, consumer trust and satisfaction will also increase.

“Basically, Indonesian consumers like buying and selling transactions with a personal touch. They want to ask directly about product specifications, delivery mechanisms, and other things that might be more complicated if done via e-commerce channels,” said CPO Sirclo, Leontius Pradhana.

Leontius said, through this service, Sirclo’s clients can reach a wider consumer base. In addition, they can also shorten the completion time of transactions including establishing pleasant two-way relationships with consumers.

Features on Sirclo Chat

For information, Sirclo Chat itself has been integrated with the WhatsApp Business API, so that consumer orders can be processed automatically. Sirclo Chat itself comes with three main features, namely:

1. Integrated Dashboard: With this feature, clients can update catalogs and product inventories, including sending automatic replies. Clients can also use multiple admins to respond to messages

2. In-App Transactions: Clients can receive and process purchase transactions directly via WhatsApp, either manually by admin or automatically.

3. Notification: Buyers will get automatic notifications about order status, invoice issuance, payment methods, and confirmation of receipt of goods.

Through these three main features, Sirclo’s clients can provide the best service for consumers. In addition, they can also save costs, labor, and operational time.

Sirclo’s Next Plan

The launch of Sirclo Chat reinforces the company’s vision to help businesses selling online. Currently, Sirclo itself already has a number of services such as the Sirclo Store and Sirclo Connexi. “We are always on the lookout for trends and strive to present new services that can help our clients to sell online better,” said Brian.

For this reason, Brian said that there will be plans to integrate the three pillars of Sirclo, namely Sirclo Store, Sirclo Connexi, and Sirclo Chat into one platform. Thus, clients can take care of the entire transaction process from one single platform.

Previously, this startup received series-B funding worth USD 6 million or around IDR 88 billion from a number of companies, namely East Ventures, OCBC NISP Ventura, Skystar Capital, Sinar Mas Land, and others.

According to Brian, this injection of funds comes at the right moment for Sirclo, which is an e-commerce enabler company. That is because the e-commerce business is currently growing rapidly during the Corona pandemic.

During this pandemic, online shopping transactions were recorded to have increased by up to 400%. Even the Sirclo Insights 2020 e-commerce report explains that there are 12 million new e-commerce users since the onset of this pandemic, and 40% of them will continue to rely on e-commerce after the pandemic ends.