Competing to Present Efficiency, Marketplace Platform Establishes Own Warehouse

The vital role of logistics for business E-commerce actually forces the players in it to rack their brains to suppress efficiency. The main challenge of Indonesian logistics is the geographical aspect with 17 thousand islands and each item must be sent through long stages.

In the previous article, it has been described how is Blibli and Lazada manages all of its warehouses to help streamline the logistics system. From the realm of the C2C marketplace, Tokopedia, Shopee, and Bukalapak, also did not escape the spotlight. Of the three, only Bukalapak took a different approach to handling this logistics solution.

This is none other than the fact that Bukalapak has made the O2O service "Platan Bukalapak" its main business. According to its financial report in the third quarter of 2022, the contribution of partners to the company's revenue increased to 53% from 43% on a regular basis year-on-year, dominates over the other two businesses, namely marketplace and Open Procurement.

In a joint interview DailySocial.id, Bukalapak President Teddy Oetomo said that the company is taking two approaches to overcome logistics issues in business marketplace and partners. Sequentially the solutions are called BukaGudang and Gudang Mitra. Everything is done together with a third party.

BukaGudang itself has been launched since March 2020, in collaboration with PT IDCommerce and Crewdible. It was not stated what his current condition was. Teddy only said that currently BukaGudang is being used by a number of people merchant at Bukalapak to manage the process of sending goods to buyers easily and comfortably.

As for the Partner Warehouse, it is a warehouse for storing wholesale goods that can be ordered by Bukalapak Partners through the Wholesale feature. This feature allows partners to receive delivery of wholesale products from the Partner Warehouse or delivery directly from the principal.

“Delivery from the Partner Warehouse is available to all 14,2 million Bukalapak Partners and has been utilized by around 5 million of our Partners. "Our warehouses are spread across 172 cities, with service coverage in more than 1.100 sub-districts in 34 provinces, with a service capacity per warehouse of up to 400 transactions per day," explained Teddy.

In its operations, Bukalapak is also supported by Crewdible and IDCommerce. Both are companies operating in the logistics sector. They have warehouses and procurement capabilities for online sellers, the only difference is that Crewdible plays on a micro warehouse network.

When asked about the Bukalapak rumors invest in Crewdible. Teddy was unwilling to respond. Previously, it was reported that Bukalapak, through the entity Sierra Ranger Pte. Ltd., participated in series A funding with other investors, namely Ondine Capital, 500 Southeast Asia, and Aldi Haryopratomo as angel investors.

Teddy continued, not only the Wholesale feature, another form of commitment from Bukalapak to make procurement easier for partners is to continue to increase the availability of various supplies of stall partners' trading needs, for example chicken meat, beef, chicken eggs, several types of vegetables and fish. The more diverse the choice of products in a grocery store, the more competitive it will be in the home environment.

Previously, the company also announced its plans to make all Transmart outlets suppliers for Bukalapak Partners to fulfill the stock of goods they sell in stalls. Before AlloFresh arrived, the SKUs that Bukalapak Partners could purchase through partnerships with Bukalapak principals were only hundreds to thousands of SKUs.

Now Bukalapak Partners in regional areas can have more product choices from various principals in the Transmart network to offer more merchandise in their stalls.

He also views the prospects for procurement solutions for stall partners as very positive, considering the number of stalls "underserved" still very large and spread across remote areas. The main challenge is limited distribution access to these areas.

"Therefore, Bukalapak will continue to develop and strengthen its service areas (coverage area) to remote areas and maintain a high level of service (SLA) for the needs of our partner stalls," he said.

The presence of "Served by Tokopedia"

Meanwhile, Tokopedia and Shopee are competing to set up their own warehouses in a number of locations to attract customers merchant large and small, it is easier to reach consumers. Actually, the service is not much different from the players E-commerce B2C such as Blibli and Lazada, because all of them also utilize their own ecosystem, with help from other third parties too, so that the results remain optimal and create efficiency.

The only difference is the product procurement. At Blibli, for example, the majority of products in the warehouse are owned by themselves.

Recently, Tokopedia has just inaugurated the largest smart warehouse of all the warehouses managed covering an area of ​​1.500 square meters. The location is Osowilangun, Surabaya, East Java. It is called a smart warehouse, the reason is because it uses technology that has been developed by Tokopedia, accompanied by analytical data that can help merchant develop a strategy when selling.

The inauguration was also attended by the Governor of East Java Khofifah Indar Parawansa. Khofifah said that the contribution of the trade sector to Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP) in East Java is in second place (18,49%) after the processing sector (above 30%), followed by agriculture.

Because it has a large contribution, the presence of a smart warehouse in Surabaya is expected to boost the trade sector even bigger. "Every growth must be inclusive because it will provide a significant reduction in open unemployment and poverty," said Khofifah.

Tokopedia's decision to present Served Tokopedia was due to seeing the trend of goods delivery which continues to soar within East Java and outside the region. The company also has a mission to grow the capacity of MSMEs so they can be closer to buyers wherever they are, without having to move to big cities.

Since its release, merchant Tokopedia in Surabaya, which utilizes this smart warehouse, is claimed to have experienced an increase in transactions in East Java by more than 1,5x. Meanwhile, sellers in Surabaya who took advantage of Served by Tokopedia experienced a 2x increase in transactions from outside East Java.

"Served by Tokopedia spread across various regions in Indonesia is one example of the manifestation of the initiative Hyperlocal Tokopedia applies technology geo-tagging," added Tokopedia's Director of Public Policy and Government Relations Astri Wahyuni.

Serviced by Tokopedia, it provides a number of facilities for MSMEs, including free first 30 days, delivery services with 3PL and packaging, dashboard access for stock management and sales monitoring. Meanwhile, buyers will get free shipping service and the goods will arrive much faster.

On the site, the fees charged to sellers when using Tokopedia Services are explained, including costs fulfillment and storage costs. For a fee fulfillment IDR 5 thousand per item, includes admin fees, inboundand outbound. Meanwhile, storage fees are charged for each unit of goods that has been stored in the warehouse for more than 60 days. The cost starts from IDR 750 to IDR 2 thousand.

The smart warehouses served by Tokopedia are spread across six points, namely Jakarta, Makassar, Medan, Bandung and Palembang. In Surabaya alone, there are two smart warehouses, but the largest is in Osiwilangun.

AVP of Fulfillment Business Development Tokopedia Samuel Simanjuntak said, throughout the third quarter of 2022 overall the number of buyers using Served Tokopedia increased 1,5x in total year-on-year. Meanwhile, the number of transactions jumped more than 2x and the number of sellers who took advantage of Served by Tokopedia increased more than 2x.

On the other hand, the routes from Medan to Merauke Regency, and Palembang Martadinata to Jayapura city are some of the furthest goods deliveries served by Tokopedia.

Previous Served by Tokopedia using the name TokoCabang has been introduced since 2019. The partners attracted are PT Bintang Digital Internasional (Haistar) and TitipAja, a logistics business unit last mile Anteraja.

Samuel Simanjuntak is a former employee of Sorabel and then founded Swift (as CEO and Co-founder) after Sorabel closed operations in July 2020. Exploring further, Served Tokopedia is run by PT Swift Logistics Solutions (SLS).

In the GOTO prospectus, SLS was acquired by Tokopedia, through PT Selamat Gerak Tangkas (SGT) last year. SGT invested 67% in SLS. Not only SLS, Swift also has other subsidiaries, namely PT Swift Shipment Solutions (SSS) and PT Swift Enabler Solutions (SES). Both were also acquired by SGT and are now part of the GoTo Group.

As for its closest competitor, Shopee also has services Managed by Shopee It has been introduced since 2020. Now its locations are spread across seven cities, namely Jakarta, Medan, Palembang, Semarang, Surabaya, Balikpapan and Makassar. The solutions offered are more or less the same, namely order and stock management, trained chat agents, picking, packaging and delivery, and handled by reliable operational personnel.

There is an additional feature, namely Partial Fulfillment, if the stock in the Shopee warehouse runs out, the seller can immediately send the order from the seller's warehouse. This condition is more flexible and reduces the risk of order cancellations due to out of stock.