Saturdays Ready for Store Expansion After Funding Pocketed

D2C startups lifestyle Saturdays is ready to expand its market reach in Indonesia after securing funding in the form of venture debt with an undisclosed nominal from Genesis Alternative Ventures.

Saturdays now has 45 stores in 11 cities spread across Greater Jakarta, Bandung, Surabaya, Medan, Palembang, Makassar, Banjarmasin, Samarinda and Batam. They also recently opened a booth lifestyle at Central Park Mall, Jakarta. Some of the leading brands that have worked with Saturdays include Marvel and Indomie.

Last year, Saturdays got series A pendanaan funding led by Altara Ventures with participation by DSG Consumer Partners. One year earlier, Saturdays had closed seed funding from Alpha JWC Ventures, Kinesys Group, and Alto Partners.

"We seek funding from various sources and partner with various institutions that have value and can bring complementary skills, knowledge, and resources. This allows us to maximize benefits through diversified partnerships and create long-term value as we want to solve the problem of visual impairment in Indonesia," said Saturdays Co-Founder Rama Suparta to DailySocial.id.

Rama revealed that Saturdays' income will grow many times over in 2022 compared to the previous year. With this achievement, the company will maintain its growth in a sustainable manner in the coming year. Saturdays also strives to remain agile while being careful in investing in human resources and adding new product lines amidst the current economic situation.

For your information, Saturdays is a product brand lifestyle with glasses as the main product line. This startup was founded by Andrew Kadolha and Rama Suparta in 2016. Saturdays said it produces its own lens and eyeglass frame materials, including design, manufacturing, and delivery to consumers.

To reach users, Saturdays uses an approach omnichannel to market products offline (retail stores) and online (websites and applications). In offline channels, Saturdays integrates its stores with coffee outlets to give it a touch lifestyle.

On sales website, it has embedded an AI-based facial scanning feature to provide recommendations for glasses frames and experiences omnichannel that seamless pattern to consumers. Apart from that, consumers can try out eyeglass frames directly through the Corporate & Home Try-On feature in the application.

"In the last 12 months, we have seen the trend of visits to our stores increasing because customer preferences have begun to shift offline as the pandemic slows down. We estimate that sales will follow the upward trend in the month of Ramadan this April," he added.

Impact of D2C trends

Furthermore, Rama said that Indonesia has witnessed a surge in D2C brands triggered by technological advances and changes in consumer preferences. According to him, the D2C brand has a positive impact on economic growth because it encourages innovation and investment, as well as creating new jobs.

"Indonesia continues to develop digital infrastructure and develop an ecosystem that supports entrepreneurship and innovation. Therefore, the potential for further growth and investment in the D2C sector will remain significant. We continue to invest in technology to provide a comfortable shopping experience for our customers, both online nor offline," he said.

The development of D2C in Indonesia was also triggered by the behavior of Gen Z and millennial consumers in consuming goods. According to Capgemini research, Gen Z (68%) and millennials (58%) like to order products directly from the brand owner in the last six months. Meanwhile, almost two-thirds (60%) prefer to buy directly rather than buy at traditional retail outlets.

In our article about D2C trends, Chief Investment Officer of BRI Ventures Markus Liman said that D2C startups must realize when they have to increase their scale when they already have product-market fit. This can also be a further challenge because there are higher operational risks that D2C players need to pay attention to.

"Today's D2C challenge is scalability Karena scaling D2C and scaling platforms are two different things. For example scaling inventory, meaning D2C players have to think about logistics costs. If you have entered supply chain leaders, such as supermarkets and general trade, what needs to be prepared? This is something you might not think about tech startups. Key scalability D2C is how it gets into mass retail. Otherwise, how can you try the potential spend the greater one?"