1. Indonesia e-commerce has grown 1.4X over last year in the first half

The nation boasts 85 million online consumers in December ‘2020 through 20 million new online consumers since December ‘2019. Ecommerce players benefitted from 2x year-on-year growth in fashion compared to 1H’2020 leading to a higher Lebaran sale season. Other niche categories such as automotive are expanding with eCommerce players partnering with automotive platforms.

2. Livestream commerce is gaining traction

Keen on accelerating shop-in-shop growth, Indonesian merchants have enlisted the help of Instagram celebrities and local artists to promote their products through livestreams. Online merchants in Indonesia saw spikes in catalog viewership and shop traffic during live stream events at 35% and 15%, respectively. Ecommerce platforms in Indonesia have also realized a 40% surge in sales conversion between each livestream event.

Indonesia just began developing livestream commerce and can achieve rapid scale from global learnings. China-based livestreams have a massive following. The social media giant TikTok gained 5 million viewers within a year of its eCommerce partnership with Shopify. Taobao’s annual Global Shopping Festival generated RMB498.2 billion (US$74.1 billion) during its 11-day campaign in November 2020.

3. Quick Commerce on the rise

Consumers are eager for instant access to goods due to limited offline store hours. This has led to a sharp rise in same day delivery selection for eCommerce shipments seen by 3x year-on-year growth from 1H2020 to 1H2021. It has prompted eCommerce players to scale 3PL operations. Recently eCommerce players have merged with consumer tech players and have benefited from 3PL partnerships. Other players have beefed up their 3PL operations by improving in-house instant delivery offering. Instant delivery service is expected to grow as consumers favor higher convenience in their purchasing decision.

4. Fresh Food offering being expanded

Ecommerce players have ramped up their fresh-food vertical by introducing new products and services. Aware of consumer demand for meat and seafood, several players have rolled out cold chain delivery features. Now consumers have the option to order fresh vegetables and fruits along with frozen meat from the comfort of their own home with a same-day delivery option. Conscious of wet market challenges, eCommerce platforms have also extended their Consumer to Consumer (C2C) based fresh food on instant delivery. It resulted in a massive migration of traditional market shop owners shifting online. These value-added services have a positive ripple effect on the overall fresh food vertical with 13x year-on-year growth from 1H’2020 to 1H’2021.