The Difficulty of New Players Entering the "On Demand" Transportation Market

Transportation service on demand in Indonesia has developed. Recently, it has been widely discussed that there are several new names that will pave the way in Indonesia.

A new player debuting in Indonesia is BitCar. This service originating from Malaysia enters Indonesia under the auspices of PT Bitokenpay Digital Indonesia. The company manages the BitCar brand in Indonesia.

Bitcar Indonesia is currently based in the Ruko Garden Shooping Arcade, Central Park, Grogol, West Jakarta. The service, which started operating in August 2019, offers online taxi services. The driver partners are said to have reached 1.000 drivers.

"We are not a subsidiary, we work together. We have met them in Malaysia, I talked about him agreeing. We work together to use the brand," reveal Bitcar Indonesia COO Christian Wagey.

Still from the same source, Wagey explained that they do not position themselves as competitors, but as their alternative for the Indonesian people. Bitcar is quite optimistic that it will be successful in Indonesia because of its approach to the existing online taxi driver community.

There is also Maxim, an online transportation application that has been operating in a number of cities in Indonesia rejection in some areas for violating the tariff rules that have been set by the government. Then FastGo, a company from Vietnam is reportedly also targeting Indonesia as an expansion target.

Unfortunately, right now is not the right time.

Blocking variable

To attract the attention of users, usually the service will use a promotional strategy by offering discounts. However, the strategy of cutting tariffs may no longer be effective.

Price is still a reference for many users before deciding to find a ride, but convenience and ease of payment are in the calculation variables. As time goes by, people understand that credibility and security are the main factors in traveling, that's why discounted fares are no longer effective.

The next challenge is in the regulation section. It is not only a matter of permits but also regulations governing the up and down rates of online transportation. This regulation has been in preparation for quite some time and has recently been validated to be immediately applied as a reference.

Not to mention, the giant transportation technology companies have a myriad of promotions every day.

Loyalty

In Indonesia, users are on the verge of being loyal and disloyal. I personally and several people I meet have more than one application with the same functionality for online transportation and shopping. However, there are rarely more than three of these applications. The reasons are various, ranging from the promos offered are quite tempting or even the application is light so that it is considered not to burden smartphone performance.

Gojek and Grab transformed into a multifunctional application. They call it a "super app", an application with a myriad of services in it. It's the perfect concept to keep customers "going nowhere". Only in one app. Not only transportation, they also offer features to top up, order food, book hotels, shop, order tickets movies, to even top up. Both of them also expand functionality by cooperating with several other digital companies.

One feature that I think plays an important role in terms of keeping users up is choice of payment method. Integration with the two largest e-money platforms in Indonesia, Go-Pay and Ovo, makes the struggle for new players even more difficult.

Gojek and Grab not only complete in terms of service, but also coverage. Both of them have expanded their network in almost all corners of Indonesia. They have visited cities with traffic density problems.

Adult with user

Gojek and Grab is currently entering the phase of enriching innovation and variety of services. They have passed the times of looking for driver and user partners, educating the market, and rejections. They have grown and matured with the market. On the other hand, new players in Indonesia, even though they are already operating in their home country, are still new players. They have to start from the beginning to recognize the uniqueness of the Indonesian market.

From a user's point of view it's hard to look away from these two apps. It takes a "localization" strategy for new players from abroad to get a place in Indonesia.

Conclusion

Gojek and Grab it's everywhere. In different cities and different types of services. They not only managed to acquire users in Indonesia but also managed to grow and develop with the existing market. Gojek and Grab has gone through a series of rejections, forcing regulators to issue regulations, to succeed in changing people's daily lives.

Currently there is almost no gap for new players to be able to shift the dominance of the two. Just being an alternative is quite heavy, promos are not enough. Needed something really innovative and useful--which neither of them had yet.