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In a remote Borneo village, Fatimah is looking for the perfect 👠 wedding shoes.
No need for hour-long 🛶 boat rides to markets anymore.
Now, Shopee 📲 connects her with global merchants.
Shopee weaves through Indonesia’s 13,000 islands 🏝 , revealing the nation’s diverse tapestry.
Fatimah snagged a deal on her dream sandals. The magic ✨ begins at Patris, a family-owned online shoe business in Bogor (South Jakarta).
Ricco and Maria, the founders, embraced live-streaming 📺 to showcase their trendy offerings. From a two-story warehouse, young women 📦 pack and ship thousands of pairs daily.
Indonesia’s infrastructure boom facilitates deliveries, but the journey faces challenges 😰 .
No proper roads or postcodes in some areas mean local couriers 🏍 navigate sampans and swamps .
E-commerce firms everywhere struggle 💪 with how to handle the first and last miles of deliveries.
But in Indonesia, the middle mile 🛣 is also a challenge, says Handhika Jahja, the head of Shopee Indonesia.
From the warehouse to the Bogor hub, a truck ride, an airport transfer, and a plane journey 🛩 to South Kalimantan – Fatimah’s shoes navigate through obstacles, including forest fires 🔥.
Fatimah’s shoes journey showcases how smartphones have revolutionized 🤘 e-commerce in Indonesia.
Indonesia embraces ❤️ and resists globalization at the same time, with protectionist policies and a wary eye 🤔 on China .
Fatimah’s village sees e-commerce as a gateway 🚪 to new opportunities.
Rizki Nur Annisa, a local woman making 🐠 fish crackers, turned to Shopee during the pandemic, expanding her market beyond local shores.
In Fatimah’s house, the joy 💃 of online shopping unfolds—lip gloss, moisturizer, and baby’s milk bottle—all from Shopee.
The journey from “wish to doorstep” reflects Indonesia’s evolving landscape 🌆 .
It also shows how e-commerce helps bind together a nation of skyscrapers 🏢 and jungles 🌴, miniskirts 👗 and hijabs 🧕 .
According to Statista, the value of e-commerce sales in the ASEAN region is forecasted to reach 💲150 billion USD in 2025.
More than half of that being from Indonesia.
Despite the strong fundamentals and promising outlook of the e-commerce sector in the Asean region, ⬆ ups and ⬇ downs show up.
Are the recent regional lay-off at Lazada due to external market forces 💹 or due to Lazada’s internal reasons 👨💼 ?
What do you think? Leave your opinion in the comments 🙏 (in the LinkedIn post, link below).
Follow us at CINTASIA for more stories and insights on doing business in Indonesia.
Source : The Economist
Image : Rosa Panggabean
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