Blibli Will Soon Add 18 New Warehouses This Year

Blibli revealed that it will add 18 new warehouses located around Java and Sumatra this year as an effort to speed up delivery duration for consumers. It did not mention the value of the investment prepared, but it was disclosed that Blibli would lease the majority of the warehouse.

"This year we plan to have 32 warehouses by the end of this year, a significant increase from 14 warehouses at the end of last year," said Blibli CEO Kusumo Martanto, Thursday (2/5).

Blibli SVP Operations and SVP Product Management Lisa Widodo said that the majority of these warehouse additions will be done by renting the existing ones. He refused to mention the budget prepared by the company to realize the plan.

The focus of adding new warehouses is still placed around Java and Sumatra. The location will be seen from consumer demand. The stock of products in each warehouse will differ from one another, depending on the category that is most requested. However, we can be sure that FMCG category products will be available in all warehouses.

"In each warehouse, we have also equipped it with technology and the system is ready paperless. So when there is order entered, the duration must be under three hours already out of the warehouse to be sent to consumers," said Lisa.

Currently the company has 14 warehouses spread across Jadetabek, Medan, Bandung, Surabaya and Sidoarjo, Denpasar, Semarang, Makassar, and others. Also, there are 19 hub scattered in big cities to help stock storage.

Blibli's internal logistics system, Blibli Express Service (BES), now has more than 550 courier fleets. The company is also working with 15 logistics partners to help deliver shipments to consumers.

Service innovation

In line with this plan, Kusumo said the company will expand its O2O presence through the Blibli InStore and Click&Collect programs. It is targeted that by the end of this year, these two programs can be present in more than 20 thousand retail outlets, from the current position of 3 thousand outlets.

BliBli InStore is Blibli's POS program available at offline retail outlets that can be used for consumer shopping. While Click&Collect, consumers can pay for transactions through the Blibli website and pick up goods directly from registered merchant stores.

"We have signed with strategic partners to expand cooperation with offline outlets, it's just a matter of execution this year waiting for the right moment."

The newly released feature update Blibli is Bli-Box, a virtual store that allows consumers to shop for their daily needs from Blibli Mart by scanning the QR code. This concept is similar to that brought by JD.id through JDVirtual.

Blibli has already distributed Bli-Box boards in public places such as KRL stations and will expand to office areas to attract more buyers.

"This has been a soft launch since last month, we have distributed 20 Bli-Boxes. We will try to bring Bli-Boxes to the airport. We will customize each Bli-Box display according to the highest demand at that point," said SVP of Trade Partnership Blibli Fransisca K. Nugraha.

In terms of technology, the company continues to strive to update the back end and security systems to improve consumer convenience. Blibli VP Infrastructure Ongkowijoyo explained that the company has four frameworks to protect e-commerce systems, starting from: security operations center, 100% HTTPS, secure software development cycle, to bot detection system.

Bot detection system This serves for fraud detection when there is one flash sale pproducts, so that all consumers have the same opportunity as others when they want to buy goods.

"We also carry out various protections from the consumer side, there is verification of cellphone numbers, 3D secure payments, OTP, up to phishing site detection. Blibli cooperates with 21 banks, retail outlets, Gopay, Blipay, and BCA OneKlik, all of which have the same protection," said Ongkowijoyo.

Blibli has just released AR technology to help consumers match items, such as whether the furniture they want to buy is suitable or not for their home before buying it. This feature is only available for the iOS version. Next is the Clara chatbot (Chat Live and Recommended Assistant) for consumer consultation. Clara can be accessed through the Blibli website and app.

Blibli Performance

At the same time, Kusumo also revealed Blibli's achievements during the first quarter of 2019, although he did not specify the numbers. Transaction growth reached 2,5 times year-on-year (yoy) with more than two million shipment volumes.

When viewed based on the total transaction volume, Blibli Mart controls up to 41%, cellphones and tablets 15%, and utilities 12%. There are 54 official brands and more than 100 thousand merchants who work with the company. The increase in the number of partners also affected the number of products which grew 3 times.