Enhancing Indonesian exports, e-commerce giant and local unicorn Tokopedia will be implementing its own “globalization strategy” to help its merchants to export their products abroad, following a similar strategy carried out by competitor Bukalapak.
At a DealStreet Asia event in Singapore, President of Tokopedia, Patrick Cao said that Tokopedia merchants will benefit and utilise the company’s resource, network, and connectivity to be able to sell to a broader market. But unlike Bukalapak, Tokopedia will offer this service offline. While Tokopedia has carried out some promotion of local brands to foreign markets on its platform, no cross-border transaction is facilitated on it.
Retaining its focus on serving the Indonesian market only, Cao said that helping merchants sell their products abroad will be the full extent of Tokopedia’s globalization strategy for now. Its strong focus on the Indonesian market, Cao believes, is what sets Tokopedia apart from well-funded regional competitors like Singapore-based Lazada and Shopee, despite them investing heavily to build out strong local teams in Indonesia
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Cao said: “We are the beneficiaries of the fourth largest market in the world. So we don’t need to go elsewhere. They run centralized technology product leadership teams in Singapore. Everything is built in one place and translated. So if you take a Singaporean app and then translate it into Bahasa, you as an Indonesian would know very well that the customer journey is not as good. So that I think is also a key advantage”.
While Bukalapak recently achieved the breakeven milestone, Tokopedia seems in no rush. In regards to revenue management, the company prefers to look at global peers for inspiration. Its global peers, like Amazon, generate a lot of cash flow which they reinvest into their business, so at times they show profitability. “I think we always have the option to be profitable, it’s just that we choose to invest in growth and we will continue to do that in a sustainable manner,” Cao added.
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