The Spirit of Commerce to Connect the Digitization of MSMEs and the E-Commerce Industry

From 514 cities in Indonesia, 15 city areas are included metropolitan category which accounts for 50%-70% of Indonesia's digital economy. The magnitude of the influence of this metropolis raises questions about the role and potential of the remaining cities in the digital economy.

Many believe the next wave of digital growth will be driven by non-metropolitan areas—especially its 177 tier-2 and tier-3 cities. With the right approach and collaboration, the digital economy in tier 2 and tier 3 cities could triple by 2025 and account for 30%-50% of the overall digital economy, up from 20%-40% in 2020. The potential of the digital economy in Indonesia's tier 2 and tier 3 cities will not be easy. These cities behave differently and face a different set of challenges in adopting digital behaviour.

Nofi Bayu Darmawan missed this opportunity when he returned to his homeland, Purbalingga. Originally Commercial in the form of a social movement that provides training for Purbalingga children about the e-commerce industry, a field that Bayu is good at.

“So that the impact is systemic and broad, I changed the initial one social movements become a company. It used to be called Kampung Marketer. It was named because my dream at that time wanted to make internet marketers in the area so that they can earn marketing things," said Bayu to DailySocial.id.

With the vision of wanting to form a mindset like a digital startup, Kampung Marketer rebranding became Commercial at the beginning of 2021 yesterday. Bayu used this momentum to recruit professionals as partners. The choice was Syaefullah Syeif. Previously, Syaefullah worked at Grab as Customer Experience Team Lead, so it feels right to jointly lead a business that focuses on providing talent outsourced to help MSME businesses go online.

The business is in line with Komerce's ambition to become end-to-end e-commerce enabler for MSMEs. The realization is through contribution digital talent which has been running since 2017 to help small businesses, allowing them to be recruited online remote (remote hiring) or on site (MSMEs bring talent to their offices) in the e-commerce industry.

This solution was named Komhire (talent-as-a-service), with roles in three areas: training, job matching, and performance monitoring.

These talents have the following skill specifications customer service, advertisers, marketplace admin, and social media admin. MSMEs just need to match their needs without subscription fees and maximum conditions for using the service.

MSMEs only need to pay a monthly fee for Commerce in the form of an administration fee, while for recruited talent it will be a monthly basic salary and bonuses which have been recapped and paid directly into the talent's account.

“We have to maintain our performance talent It's still good because the expectations of MSMEs are that their business will progress. In another sense, this product is 'selling human performance'. Good remote or even on site, we provide regular training tomaintain knowledge and skill them to stay ready to hire. "

Currently, there are more than hundreds of business people who are Komerce partners and empower more than 1300 young talents who take part in training organized by Komerce. They not only come from Purbalingga and the Central Java region, but also from Yogyakarta and other areas. It is claimed that Komerce has distributed income of more than IDR 1 billion every month.

Pioneer Komship

It didn't stop there, Komerce started pioneering other products, Komship, which operates as a logistics service aggregator to help businesses manage the order process and delivery of goods throughout Indonesia. Bayu said that Komship came with a background of issues that emerged after daily transactions successfully recorded by talents at Komhire reached thousands to tens of thousands of transactions.

“From there a new problem emerged. Turns out it was recording order and delivery is still lacking seamless. Finally, with the 'low hanging fruit' concept, we executed it in segments shipping and management orders with connect to large expeditions and integrating the technology, so that MSMEs can send packages affordably and can be picked up anywhere."

This solution also answers consumer needs regarding the COD payment scheme (Cash on delivery) which is so high. Businesspeople are still presenting these solutions to this day to keep getting buyers. Through Komship, business people can choose COD and regular (non-COD) payment options through the site, after entering input order transaction.

"If COD is enabled, dealsWith direct expeditions funds are usually disbursed two to three times a week, but we have value COD funds can be searched every day so cash flow business people are not bothered.”

As an initial stage, Komship has been tested on MSMEs in the Barlingmascakeb area (Purbalingga, Banjarnegara, Banyumas, Cilacap and Kebumen) for delivery throughout Indonesia. Komship has signed cooperation with more than 5 major expeditions through technology integration (open API) and offers shipping cost efficiency starting from 25% shipping cost savings.

Komship is present as a stand-alone solution at Komerce. MSMEs who are not Komhire users can still use Komship services, and vice versa. However, if consumers access all Komerce products, the dashboards will be integrated with each other and this will provide maximum benefits for MSMEs.

Next development

“Our next plan is to launch Kompack, an aggregator fulfillment which will be launched next May. We want to bridge people in big cities who have large and utilized space with MSMEs in areas who want it drop goods to there as last mile delivery. We execute them one by one until we can achieve our goals from upstream to downstream support MSMEs do digitalization."

The Komerce concept succeeded in attracting the attention of the Bukalapak Co-founder Ahmad Zaky to invest through the Achmad Zaky Foundation (ZAF) with the Indigo Telkom Acceleration Program. There is no nominal value mentioned in this initial round.

Bayu said the company used the funds to recruit technology talent. “Because regional startups like ours have their own challenges top tech talent. Tech talent "This is an implementation of Komerce's focus on digitizing MSMEs so that they can maximize their use of e-commerce platforms," ​​he concluded.