Monk's Hill Ventures: "E-commerce 2.0" Transformation Will Happen in Indonesia This Year

Throughout 2020, service E-commerce experienced significant growth. The rules of working and studying at home encourage many people to do shopping activities independently online. Related business trends e-commerce, Dalam media briefings hosted by Monk's Hill Ventures (MHV) today (27/01) several things were disclosed. One of them, their observations show that in 2021 the service E-commerce will undergo an even greater transformation, they call "E-commerce 2.0".

Service transformation E-commerce 2.0

In Indonesia, there are now many sellers, even though they are small in scale, but have taken advantage of various services online marketplace such as Shopee, Tokopedia, Bukalapak, and others to make sales. In addition, they are also starting to gain a lot of traction by utilizing social media such as Facebook, Instagram, and Facebook channel other. This method is actually nothing new. Most sellers always do engagement with their buyers via social media.

"What is different now is that most sellers and buyers are not only focused on the product but who is selling it. So brand equity the sellers and the products they own are part of the current experience," said Kuo-Yi Lim, managing partner of Monk's Hill Ventures.

In this case, as exemplified by him, when buyers intend to make purchases on platforms such as Lazada or Shopee, they will be offered directly to more than 20 sellers from each of these platforms. In the future, you will see a shift in experience brand in various channel from the seller's point of view.

"Ninja Van (one of the portfolios of MHV) currently helps more than 100 thousand businesses every month. 30% of the contribution comes from SME sellers from various locations in Indonesia, from small towns to remote areas," said Kuo-Yi Lim.

To be able to make this happen, of course, great support from related parties is needed, starting from the procurement, payment, logistics and more. It is important to then be able to make each seller appear superior, amidst the increasingly fierce competition today.

"MHV sees this as potential, by adopting the traditional way of utilizing channel that will drive exciting dynamics in Indonesia and other countries."

Growth edutech and healthtech

An interesting thing that later also became a concern for MHV was the increasing service growth healthtech and EdTech globally today. Even though at the beginning of the pandemic it was a bit difficult for the platform healthtech to be able to stay relevant related to the pandemic, but take advantage of technology artificial intelligence turned out to be able to speed up the collection of information and decision making of doctors and hospitals to save the lives of patients.

"Even though the adoption of hospital technology is still slow and most doctors are the policy makers, but when they see technology can save someone's life, it is hoped that it can change mindset they. In the digital sphere I see there will be continued growth," said Kuo-Yi Lim.

Meanwhile from the side EdTech, even though now with the United States government and its new president starting to enforce a back-to-school policy for students, it will certainly look like what the changes will look like in the future. But on the other hand, by combining offline and online teaching and learning activities, it turns out that it can still run and in the future it will become the new normal for education globally.

"In the past, many schools objected to adopting technology for education, the existence of a pandemic is proof and of course a warning what if this condition happens again. In the future, more teachers and schools will see that there are new ways to teach and learn. namely online. Although there will be declines and adjustments, this trend will continue to grow in the future," said Kuo-Yi Lim.

Investment trends in 2021

An interesting thing that was later revealed by Monk's Hill Ventures Partner Justin Nguyen was that, prior to the pandemic, his party had invested in various sectors. Starting from logistic, healthtech, and others. According to Justin, this sector has become an option for MHV to be developed and of course invested. In fact, the sector during the pandemic actually experienced a very good acceleration.

"As principal from investors we see is, does what they (startup founders) do make sense. I see running a company is still the same before or during the pandemic."

Even though there was a decline in investment in Q3 2020, if we look at the increasing interest of investors from China to the United States to play in the Southeast Asian region, Justin predicts that in 2021 the number of investments from various investors will increase.