KitaBuli Optimistic "Team Buying" Model Can Be Accepted Amid the Maturity of the E-commerce Market

Based on a report made by Econsultancy with Magento and Hootsuite in October 2019 entitled “The State of Social Commerce in Southeast Asia”, the industry social commerceis projected to grow significantly. With more than 350 million internet users in Southeast Asia and 90% of the people connected to the internet using smartphone, the opportunity to transact is very large.

The pandemic has also become a positive trigger for targeted startups social commerce. The size demand equipped with the use of social media to the joint purchase model (team buying), becomes very ideal for startups targeting social commerce to grow positively. One of the startups that is trying to provide this service is KitaBeli.

Focus on the concept "team buying"

KitaBeli was founded by Prateek Chaturvedi, Ivana Tjandra, Subhash Bishnoi, and Gopal Singh Rathore in March 2020. The platform facilitates the purchase of basic necessities, FMCG, and other household products—in groups. (team buying). KitaBeli application users invite their acquaintances to form a group, then buy the product together at a discounted price.

"Noticing that other platforms don't focus on the sharing and social aspects of buying, we decided to start KitaBeli and enable Indonesian users to do this better internationally. online," said KitaBeli Co-founder Prateek Chaturvedi.

A direct approach to the end customer (direct-to-consumer) make KitaBui different from players social commerce others in Indonesia. Users directly order goods in the application, not through agents or reseller. This method enables KitaBeli to build customer loyalty and a more profitable business model. On other platforms most users are required to talk to suppliers, confirm stock and more. The process can take hours.

"We also do fast shipping. All orders are dispatched within 2 days at a very low cost. With the concept of sharing and inviting your friends to join the app, our users get more discounts. They can also see what their friends are buying, and join the group of friends, to get a cheaper price," said Prateek.

KitaBeli is now operating in the Greater Jakarta area, with a rapidly growing number of customers. The group buying model encourages users to invite their acquaintances to join and download the KitaBeli application. In addition, the transaction value per user in the KitaBeli application continues to grow every month.

"KitaBeli users like the social features of KitaBeli. They are also satisfied with the speed of delivery of goods, 95% of orders are delivered within 2 days. From Jakarta, we plan to immediately expand the service to other cities, including tier 2-4 cities," said Co-founder KitaBeli Ivana Tjandra.

Early stage funding

At the end of August 2020, KitaBeli announced early stage funding with an unpublished amount. In a round led by East Ventures, AC Ventures joined the funding round with participation from several angel investors. In addition to expanding the service area to tier 2-4 cities, the application of technology by developing products is the company's next plan.

"We are focused on creating great user experiences, and increasing user loyalty. Our users really love this app. Every month they buy more from us, and they buy more often. This is more important to us now than the number of users," said Prateek. .

The KitaBeli team is based in India and Indonesia, consisting of a technology team in Bengaluru as well as an operational team and a marketing team in Jakarta. Before founding KitaBeli, Prateek was founder Getfocus.in, a SaaS company providing B2B marketing solutions from India which was acquired by Moka in 2018. Meanwhile, Ivana has experience developing new businesses and verticals for Bridestory and Handy.

“WeBuy introduce team buying to one of the markets ecommerce with the fastest growth. We are excited to partner with Prateek and Ivana, bringing this new way of shopping to Indonesian consumers,” said East Ventures Co-founder & Managing Partner. Willson Cuaca.

"This experience has encouraged high-frequency purchases of daily basic necessities. Prateek and Ivana are entrepreneur experienced and visionary with operational expertise in the local market. They are in the best position to build the next consumer technology story in Indonesia,” said AC Ventures Managing Partner Adrian Li.