Potential of E-commerce Services to Support Economic Recovery in Indonesia

In Indonesia, the internet economy grew from $40 billion in 2019 to $44 billion in 2020. Of this value, around 73% or $32 billion came from the e-commerce sector.

The pandemic has changed the habits and lifestyles of most people in terms of options for buying daily necessities to digital payments.

What will the potential and landscape of the e-commerce sector in Indonesia look like in the future? Intrepid Indonesia Co-Founder & CEO Sean Lawlor shared some interesting information that can be observed.

The Growth Of E-Commerce Services During The Pandemic

As a platform that supports brands’ success in launching social media and marketplace marketing activities, Intrepid noted that during the pandemic the number of Indonesians who used e-commerce services to make purchases increased by 110%.

Consumers also spend more of their time exploring various e-commerce services, especially at the beginning of the 2020 pandemic. If before the pandemic they only spent about 3 hours, during the pandemic they could spend more than 4 hours online.

And it was noted that now when the rules have started to loosen and offline routines are back running, their time to surf the internet has not decreased in number.

“The increasing use of online among Indonesians during the pandemic allowed the economy to grow, even though the travel sector experienced a massive decline,” said Sean.

Products such as daily necessities, health products, home and lifestyle products, to hobbies, have become the choice of most Indonesians during the pandemic. During the pandemic, most of them spend time at home and choose to shop online.

For payment options such as mobile banking are also increasingly being used. This is certainly an opportunity for banks to launch digital services that make it easier for customers to make transactions and other needs online.

The services launched by BCA Digital Blu to BRI banks through BRImo, are the best and right solutions for now. On the other hand, SMS banking also gained momentum during the pandemic which continued to increase with growth of around 73% yoy.

Potential For Quick Commerce And Social Commerce

An interesting thing that Intrepid has also observed over the past two years is the increasing growth of quick commerce, social commerce, and shopping activities using live streaming.

One of the reasons why these three categories are getting more attention is because consumers want to find more interesting experiences when shopping, as well as speed and efficiency when shipping goods.

“Currently, we also see that consumers are increasingly dependent on purchases through e-commerce services, especially for the delivery of food and groceries, which has led to the growth of online groceries competition,” said Sean.

The services offered by Astro and Segari as well as major e-commerce services that focus on groceries, such as TokopediaNow and Shopee Segar, are now increasingly being chosen by consumers.

In addition to daily needs, consumer spending habits in Indonesia have also begun to shift to certain products. Starting from health products and anti-covid products such as vitamins, masks, and sanitisers.

Other categories that Intrepid also pays attention to are groceries, children’s toys, products for hobbies such as bicycles, home appliances and work support products, air purifiers, televisions and speakers are also included in the categories that are widely chosen at this time.

Especially for social commerce, although currently it is still in demand for only a few products, but when viewed from the number of social media users in 2021 in Indonesia, it has reached around 62%.

This number is an increase of about 23% compared to before the pandemic. Proving that more and more of them are using social media not only for socialization, but also for the potential to make purchases. The platforms that are widely chosen today are TikTok Shop and Instagram Shop.

“Nowadays, when young people like Gen Z have started to enter the world of work and earn an income, of course the option to shop using social media is their main choice,” said Sean.