Merchandise is in the middle of completing Series B funding, a local corporation will also participate

As a platform social commerce which supports stall owners in tier 3 and tier 4 cities, so far Dagangan has received funding from a number of investors. One of the strategic investments that have been obtained through B pre-series funding worth $6,6 million (over 95 billion Rupiah) led by BPTN Syariah Ventura.

From this strategic funding, applications have been born.The Right Shop" through API integration with BTPN Syariah. In addition to API integration and paylater, the partnership between the two companies is also carried out to provide financing access to Trading partners and expand market access.

Previously, Dagangan had also been funded by a mining company from Kalimantan, namely MMS Group, in a round series A pendanaan funding worth $11 million or the equivalent of 5 billion Rupiah. In the pre-series A funding, Bluebird Group also had time to invest in the startup that was founded in 2019.

Immediately complete the latest funding

At the end of 2022, Dagangan is in the process of discussing and finalizing with one of the strategic investors from the corporate sector. Co-Founder & CEO of Trade Ryan Manafe said, if all goes well they will complete series B funding later this year. Asked which corporation might lead the funding round this time, Ryan was reluctant to answer further.

"If we notice from the start there are several non-VC investors who are then interested in investing in us. This means that they see that there is a different economy in Dagangan. When they have conversations with investors, corporate circles are also very different from VCs. They generally immediately ask whether we are already profitable or positive EBITDA," said Ryan.

Three years since its establishment, Dagangan claims to have experienced significant growth, in the first half of 2022 an increase of 5x from the same period last year. In addition, there was a 60% increase in income for MSME actors in the Dagangan reach villages. Currently, Dagangan has 30.000+ active users with more than 500.000+ monthly shopping transactions through the app and website.

COD payment is still the main choice

Realizing the low use of bank accounts among shop owners in Dagangan's targeted locations, from the start they have provided the cash on delivery (COD) payment option to shop owners. This is also done by looking at the habits of the shop owners when they make purchases at the market to the nearby wholesale shops using cash payments.

Currently, COD payments are still the main choice for shop owners, and it is still difficult to persuade them to adopt non-cash payments.

According to Co-Founder & President of Dagangan Wilson Yanaprasetya, in the future they also have plans to add payment options to sellers and buyers to add financing features, partnering with related parties. However, for now, COD payments are still a feature which is then widely used by most of the stall owners in tier 3 and 4 cities.

As a first step, Dagangan then launched a new payment service from the BRI Virtual Account, with the aim of increasing the performance of the Dagangan platform in accelerating the digitization of payments for rural Indonesians.

Merchant is currently conducting experiments in two locations hub their property is in Sleman and Magelang. Later, if there is growth and positive response from the two locations regarding the choice of non-cash payments, it will be applied to other Dagangan's hub locations. The latest payment service from the BRI Virtual Account Dagangan has previously been included in the The roadmap from the company.

Launch the #WhereverSoEasy campaign

Dagangan's business model from the start has been focused on making it easy for users to shop through various channels channel. Starting from the Trading platform or from the network reseller and partners by leveraging digitalization and big data analysis.

"We are building a network of micro warehouses (hub-and-spoke) in cities tier 3-4 and rural areas to provide the deepest penetration for large producers to reach villages and bring people in these villages closer to access to their daily needs so that logistics costs become more efficient at affordable prices," said Ryan.

Related to this, Dagangan also launched the latest campaign #WhereverSoEasy to maximize digitization rural commerce so that in the end it can increase income and quality of life, as well as create an inclusive economic ecosystem in rural Indonesia.

"In the future, we want to target 75.000 villages in all corners of Indonesia to be reached by the Dagangan platform. In addition, we want to continue to develop every feature and service of our platform by utilizing our big data. So that we can help find the right solution to the problems faced people in rural areas,” said Wilson.

Currently, Dagangan is a social commerce startup that continues to experience positive growth. Since 2019, Merchandise service has built more than 40 hub to reach 17.000 villages in Central Java, West Java and East Java.

Regarding expansion outside Java, Ryan emphasized that it would not be easy to apply the same model in tier 3 and 4 cities outside Java. If later they will expand in that location, target audience and the operation will likely be different. Ideally, if Dagangan is going to expand, the relevant locations for them to work on include Sulawesi, Kalimantan to Bali.

"While expanding, we will also conduct consultations with our major producers. This means that there will be discussions with sellers and buyers to determine market expansion," said Ryan.