The Real Evolution of Stalls with Technology

We are now witnessing the evolution of motorcycle taxi drivers. Not only limited to transportation, they are now able to be a differentiator. Thanks to technology, they can now become couriers for delivering goods or food. Technology has succeeded in making motorcycle taxi drivers back on the streets. Warungs have the same potential, again becoming more empowered thanks to the help of technology.

This is what Kudo, Bukalapak through Mitra Bukalapak, Tokopedia is trying to do through Mitra Tokopedia, Wahyoo, and WarungPintar. Everyone approaches offline to online (O2O) to optimize the potential of warungs as part of the next digital economy driver.

Vice President of O2O Bukalapak Rahmat Danu Andika to DailySocial explained that currently Bukalapak, through Mitra Bukalapak, is trying to encourage small businesses with more efficient technology and distribution. Warung is considered to be a bridge for the community to reach digital products and become a more modern business thanks to the business management tools provided.

"As we know, the MSME sector is one of the important pillars of the Indonesian economy. In addition, Indonesia is also projected to become the country with the largest digital economy power in Southeast Asia in 2020."

"Bukalapak who has a vision of becoming a technology company that creates a comprehensive social and economic impact sees this as a challenge as well as an opportunity, how can we transform technology so that it can create a broad impact for small business actors and open up many opportunities for small business actors including stalls to increase their competitiveness and business reach," explained Danu.

The same thing was conveyed by CEO Kudo Agung Nugroho. Traditional stalls are said to be one of the biggest pillars to meet the needs of the community. However, the presence of modern minimarkets makes it difficult for them to compete. Management that is still traditional also makes them unable to optimize their business.

"Seeing these conditions (the role of MSMEs in the country's GDP), the opportunity to empower stalls is very large because warungs are one of the nation's assets for economic progress that need to be given attention and opportunities to compete using technology. more advanced and able to compete with modern minimarkets," explained Agung.

The evolution of stalls, not just selling digital products

The entry of technology in these warungs starts with the simplest things, serving the purchase of digital products such as credit and data packages. After the positive effects were felt, each of these digital companies developed it with their respective expertise.

Bukalapak, for example, started by presenting an application that could be used by its partners to buy credit, data packages, train tickets, bill payments, and other digital products.

Then gradually they provide wholesale purchasing services. This service is presented to make it easier for Bukalapak Partners in the form of stalls to buy merchandise with attractive offers and prices due to Bukalapak's collaboration with various brands and related players.

Dan told. The forerunner of Mitra Bukalapak started in 2017, where from the available data, most of the reseller Bukalapak is a shop.

"Since 2017, anyone can be reseller Bukalapak.com. Because most of them use the shop, we finally research so there is a 'wholesale' feature for stock. The distribution not efficient. Since 2017 we make distribution center cooperate with many parties," continued Danu.

One of the Bukalapak Partners we met DailySocial claimed to have received a number of advantages. One of the most obvious is the choice of payment and also the choice of how to get the merchandise. With the stock purchase feature, they get the opportunity to enjoy the convenience of ordering, free shipping and various promos offered by Bukalapak. Including the feature of sending money through the application.

"In addition to simplifying payments, for stalls and penyet you can also pay through me. Previously salesmen come, now after becoming a Bukalapak Partner there is a choice, from Bukalapak there are usually promos and free shipping," said the Bukalapak partner.

Furthermore, Bukalapak will also integrate existing services so that it can also be used for Bukalapak partners. Like BukaMotor, which allows Bukalapak Partners to become "intermediaries" to buy motorbikes for the people around them.

Bukalapak Partner will also be able to accept payments using various types of e-money because it has implemented QRIS (QR code Indonesia Standard), a QR code standard issued by the government. Warungs that become partners are also possible as "agents" for disbursement of "balance" from other partners.

Kudo also shares the same mission, to provide a complete service to its users, slowly complementing and innovating existing and features. Now, not only digital products, bill payments and stock purchases, Kudo users can already send and deposit money and help with the registration process to become drivers. Grab.

"One of the things that is currently the focus is providing digital financial services to the wider community with limited digital access and banking through collaboration with BNI to provide money transfer services through the agent network. Kudo"explained the Great.

Kudo has started campaigning for #MajuinWarung since last February. In addition to easy access to "wholesale" or stock of goods, they will also get consultations given directly by the Kudo team. The team will periodically provide useful information to improve the stall business of Kudo agents.

Carrying the same spirit, Warung Pintar takes a different approach. They changed the stalls not only from digital products and services but also physically. Turn it into a comfortable and quite "cozy" place with the presence of wifi, television, refrigerator, wifi access and several other equipment.

Smart Shop at first started as a special project at East Ventures. They caught the concern of Pak Jun, the owner of the stall in front of the coworking space Jakarta Smart City Hive, who was worried that his shop would close. From there the Warung Pintar team moved the location of Pak Jun's stall into the parking area and renovated it.

One month later, Mr. Jun's income increased by 7 times. From there, they revolutionized warungs with technology that has the potential to solve problems faced by shop owners.

“We continue to innovate and listen to what customers and kiosk partners need so that the technology we develop is accessible and easy for them to use. We continue to try to solve the hyperlocal problems these warungs have every day with the latest technology and global knowledge of products. That's why we are building an engineering team with a strong technical understanding and a big heart for the Indonesian people." clear CTO of Warung Pintar Sofian Hadiwijaya to DailySocial August last year.

Efforts to improve the welfare of the shop are also carried out by Wahyoo. They present a concept that will integrate technology with the food stall business. Including in terms of display and distribution of food ingredients.

So far Wahyoo offers convenience for shop owners to shop for necessities such as spices and food needs. But the founder and CEO Wahyoo Peter Shearer promises a number of other technological innovations that will be used by users Wahyoo.

"Wahyoo have some pipeline technology to support food stalls. Currently, the technology products that we family are in the form of applications that make it easier for shop owners to shop. But in the future there will be several technologies that we will launch, such as the use of POS and special applications for food stall customers," explained Peter.

Technology adoption is still a challenge

Similar to technology-based solutions, the process of innovating stalls is also faced with the challenge of adopting technology that has not touched many stall actors. Inevitably there must be assistance or a special team that helps penetrate technology to partners.

Wahyoo for example, they are faced with a challenge when they meet several old shop owners who do not yet use a smartphone.

"The challenge is more because some of the stall owners are old and have not used smartphones or have borrowed from their children. But we think we can overcome this with some of our programs, namely electronic financing," explained Peter.

Kudo is also the same, with the Indonesian market being quite diverse and there are still many traditional stalls that have not been touched by technology at all, the challenge is to invite them to want to learn and optimize technology. Of course with different strategies.

"One of our strategies is to recruit a local team who really understands the habits and needs of the community so that our strategy can be implemented properly, and also by presenting technology that is easy to use for these stall owners to maximize their business," explained Great.

For Bukalapak, the biggest challenge in an effort to make warungs move up the ladder is to create the right technology and education infrastructure for their partners, especially to ensure that the technology being developed can have a positive impact on partners.

"We also continue to strive to empower Bukalapak partners through various trainings, because we believe that the most important thing in increasing the potential of the digital economy is the competitiveness and quality of human resources, which we must continuously improve," said Danu.

Process to be present throughout the country

Both Bukalapak, Kudo, Smart Shop and Wahyoo are doing their best for the solutions they developed. Danu claims that they currently have more than 900.000 warung partners with 14 distribution centers located in Sumatra and Java. Meanwhile, partners who are individuals or individuals have spread in almost all provinces in Indonesia.

Bukalapak is even optimistic that it can get 3 to 3,5 million partners, both stall partners and individuals, this year. Because Mitra Bukalapak is one of the company's current focuses. Danu also said that there would be many surprises in the second half of this year from Bukalapak.

"The potential is unlimited, for now we are still focused on what we are working on take care shop. Once we can partner with place center of society the opportunity is wide open. Hopefully we can get there (offline shifting to online). The potential is still wide open," said Danu.

For Kudo, which was acquired in May 2017 Grab has successfully helped register 800.000 drivers Grab through his agent. Collaboration with Ovo and BNI also adds more complete functionality to Kudo services. Until now, Kudo's party has noted that it has been successful get 2,4 million agents spread across more than 500 cities and regencies throughout Indonesia.

"The plan in 2019 is to focus on empowering small and medium entrepreneurs, especially stalls in Indonesia to be able to progress, be more productive, improve welfare and contribute to building the nation through technology with Kudo," said Agung.

For Warung Pintar, which some time ago secured funding Series B worth 390 billion from SMDV, Vertex, Pavilion Capital, Line Ventures, Digital Garage, Agaeti, Triputra, Jerry Ng, Ev Growth and Ovo, seeking to expand its reach throughout Java.

"The next plan from Warung Pintar is to expand to the island of Java and increase the number of stalls by 5000 stalls. And continue to innovate to create products that can improve the stall business capability," explained Warung Pintar's Business Development Associate Dista Mirta Ayu.

Meanwhile Wahyoo, which started debut in 2017, this year the target is to be able to innovate 13.000 warteg (warung tegal). So far they have succeeded in embedding technology in more than 7.000 warteg in Jakarta and its surroundings. Support from investors will be maximized for service improvement and regional expansion.

"The funding will be used to develop our product and team, so that Wahyoo can provide better service to our warteg partners and increase our reach to a wider area. Currently our partners are still based in Jakarta. In the future, we hope to reach the Jabodetabek area," explained Peter commenting on the funding that was obtained some time ago.