Shipper Acquires Porter and Pakde

Shipper, a startup developing a logistics aggregator platform, announced that it has completed its acquisition of Porter and Pakde. Not announced regarding the details of the value of the agreement. Porter itself is a startup with a short distance delivery solution, similar to the services offered by GoSend or Grabexpress. While Pakde is known as a service provider fulfillment, they operate warehouses to provide logistics solutions for businesses.

Yesterday (29/9) we just had a conversation with Co-Founder & COO Shipper Budi Handoko regarding his company's initiatives enter the warehousing business. He said Shipper has ambitions to become a provider of logistics technology from upstream to downstream. So far, his party still sees challenges in the warehousing system and its role in supporting industrial growth E-commerce. Some of these challenges are structural in nature, some are behavioral, and some are caused by technology.

The acquisitions of Porter and Pakde are clearly in line with this vision. Moreover, the three companies, including Shipper, have the same customer segmentation. Budi said, "The joining of Porter with Shipper strengthens the Shipper network so that we can be closer to consumers. On the other hand, the presence of Pakde allows us to serve all consumer needs in Indonesia, not only limited in terms of shipping, but also in warehousing services."

Business development

The pandemic has given its own blessing for logistics startups in Indonesia. Consumers who increasingly rely on buying and selling and ordering services online, directly helped increase the traction of the logistics business. With this foundation, several startups in related fields received funding this year, Shipper was no exception.

June 2020, Shipper announces earnings series A pendanaan funding led by Prosus Ventures (formerly Naspers Ventures) with support from Lightspeed, Floodgate, Y Combinator, Insignia Ventures and AC Ventures. The recorded value is estimated to be around $20 million or around 283 billion Rupiah. Company closed seed round them in September 2019, posted a $5 million fund.

Pakde (Package Delivery) debuted in 2016, new book initial funding in October 2018 with a value of around 6 billion Rupiah. Since the beginning they have provided operational services for traders online, includes services inbound as stock report and stock management. Pakde also provides services warehousing in self-owned warehouse and service outbound in the form of packaging and delivery of goods to partners from clients.

While Porter has been present since 2015. They had time pivot a year later, focusing its target market on small business owners or merchant. His business then grew, not only serving the delivery of food orders from restaurants, but also facilitating the delivery of groceries from retailers and retailers E-commerce.

Logistics business opportunity

Given its geography, the Indonesian market requires a unique approach. Consumer online always demands to get logistics services that are fast, but still affordable.

A transformation has also occurred in the logistics sector, service providers not only provide a conventional delivery model -- the seller delivers the goods to a logistics kiosk, then the delivery is carried out -- now the concept fulfillment start working a lot.

Fortunately, in today's digital era, every business can use data to see trends in user consumption patterns. An example of its use, the data can be insight valuable for merchant or brand who peddle their products in E-commerce, so that they can find out which particular goods are most in demand by users in which area.

Armed with these data, then merchant or brand can take advantage of warehousing services provided by startups such as Shipper to accommodate fulfillment in cities that are far from their business base. So that when consumers place an order, the delivery of finished goods is closer and costs tend to be cheaper.

Such solutions have also been developed by other companies; some come from logistics players, E-commerceand e-commerce enablers. For enabler players who have already extended their services to the system fulfillment there are TokoTalk, Sirclo, GudangAda, and Jet Commerce. From player E-commerce there is a TokoBranch from Tokopedia, Managed by Shopee, following in the footsteps of JD.id, and Lazada who were already there.