Having received media update from Multiply Indonesia about their “No Transaction Fee” campaign for merchants using Multiply Commerce last month, e27 was able to hear from one of their successful merchants, Kertasku.
Samuel Ongkowijoyo, the owner of this paper craft shop, was delighted and said that all merchants are enjoying the benefit of having Multiply Commerce’s transaction fees, charged as a percentage of the sale price when an item sells, waived. This allows merchants to take their funds from items sold without any minimum amount. The campaign, which was launched globally, lasts until January 31 next year.
Even though he has online stores on other websites, Ongkowijoyo states several advantages from allowing buyers to access the sellers’ page directly without having to visit the providers’ home page. The infrastructure and features are well-equipped. Members socialize with each other more intensively and incentives for both sellers and buyers are offered periodically which helps to make the interaction and e-commerce activities more wholesome. Users can also share recommendations amongst each others.
“In my humble opinion, it’s not an appropriate time yet for Multiply to charge a transaction fee because Multiply has just shifted to being social shopping site. Thus, they have to do aggressive promotions in the market and win Indonesians’ mind share as an e-marketplace with a variety of products and great number of trusted sellers,” said Ongkowijoyo.
Aside from that, we are grateful that Daniel Tumiwa, Multiply Indonesia’s Country Manager, spared his time to answer some questions posed via e-mail.
Read below for more.
Having existed for almost a year in Indonesia as a social commerce site, what are the major challenges that Multiply faces in Indonesia? How do you overcome it?
“We do our own brand of experiments to see what is the best way to present social commerce in Indonesia is. We have accumulated a number of learnings along the way. We’re excited to implement those learning in our future campaigns and engagements.”
Are there any plan to release a new platform instead of Multiply 5.0? Or any plan to have additional or enhanced features beside Multiply Marketplace and Multiply Trust?
“We’re planning to add more educational elements to the site and also reorganize the categories.”
How many registered members and merchants do Multiply and Multiply Indonesia have to date?
“Presently, Multiply has more than two million registered accounts and more than 48,000 merchants (in Indonesia). Multiply’s priority is not the number of merchants we have, our priority is shifting them into quality merchants.”
What are the top three most selling product categories in Multiply Indonesia and what are their percentages among others?
“We have about 17 categories of products now. In the past, people mostly shop for baby products at Multiply. Nowadays, they can already start getting various types of other products with good quality, including electronic homewares and gadgets.”
What are the percentages of existing payment methods (KlikBCA, Transfer, Mandiri and PayPal)?
“There is not really any significant difference in the percentage of methods used.”
What are Multiply goals, objectives and targets in the long run for Indonesia?
“We look forward to educating the Indonesian market on what social commerce is all about and what platform is truly social commerce.”
Launching buyer-based campaign, most likely related to shipping fees, across the board, adding more educational elements and reorganizing categories at the website are their latest plans. Stay tuned for the official announcement.
For more information on Multiply Indonesia, you can check their site or find them on Twitter and Facebook.
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