Tough battle brews in Indonesian eCommerce

Three Indonesian eCommerce platforms are about to be launched – by Astra Graphia, CT Corp and a joint venture formed by the Salim and Lotte Groups.

This comes after forays into eCommerce in the past 12 months by such Indonesian conglomerates Lippo Group (MatahariMall and Venturra Capital), Sinar Mas Group (SMDV) MNC Group (BrandOutlet) and MAP Group (eMall), reports E27, which says Indonesia’s eCommerce market is predicted to grow to US$130 billion by 2020.

Salim Group has signed an agreement with South Korea’s retail giant Lotte Group to form a joint venture for eCommerce business. Launching next year, it is the second such collaboration followingElevenia.
Lotte Group’s portfolio in Indonesia includes a department store, 41 retail stores and 31 fast-food franchise outlets. Salim Group owns businesses in the F&B, infrastructure, logistics, telco, media and real estate sectors. It also has 11,000 Indomaret minimart outlets.
“We expect ourselves to champion the market as soon as we walk into it, says CT Corp founder Chairul Tanjung, who has yet to reveal a launch date for the group’s online venture.

CT Corp owns hypermarket chain Carrefour, the department store chain Metro, hotels and theme parks managed by TransStudio, media companies Detik and TransTV, and fashion and F&B outlets.

Its new eCommerce platform will be a separate business entity from the group’s TransRetail subsidiary, which covers its retail businesses.
Meanwhile, a subsidiary of Astra International specialising in office equipment and services, Astra Graphia has spent about IDR50 billion (US$3.6 million) on developing its Axiqoe platform.
“The online shop will display thousands of items, initially for business-to-business,” says Astra Graphia’s chief of finance Panji Nurfirman.