2017 e-commerce review for Indonesia

• Shopee put in a lot of effort and grew consistently, closed gap with Bukalapak
• Tight competition between Lazada and Tokopedia in terms of mobile shopping apps

ACCORDING to the recent Google Temasek research, in 2017 e-commerce sales of first-hand goods will reach US$10.9 billion in gross merchandise value, up from US$5.5 billion in 2015, growing 41% CAGR.

Google also mentioned that consumer interest in e-commerce has grown quickly across Southeast Asia, with Google Search interest for e-commerce brands growing more than two-fold in two years.

In 2017, iPrice Group also saw many interesting things happening in Indonesia's e-commerce environment. Some examples:

• Aggressive move by Alibaba to Indonesia. They increased their stake from 51% to 83%, and in a few months, they invested US$1.1 billion in Tokopedia.
• New players: Amazon entered Singapore and Australia. Salim group and Lotte launched iLotte.
• Huge promotions from a lot of merchants during the 11.11 and 12.12 period.

iPrice saw new players coming, new funding, acquisitions, and many other good things happening in Indonesia's e-commerce scene.

In this 2017 e-commerce review, iPrice shares data and findings about Indonesia, such as:

1. The most searched e-commerce sites in Indonesia
2. Top 10 most visited e-commerce sites
3. Top 5 most popular mobile shopping apps
4. The most popular e-commerce sites in social media
5. Popular online shopping events in 2017

1. The most searched e-commerce sites in Indonesia in 2017

Based on the search interest growth over time data, here is what iPrice found:

Lazada and Tokopedia in the top position

Lazada and Tokopedia are the first and second most searched e-commerce site in 2017.

This happened because of many factors. Some big examples from Lazada: their anniversary promotion, Alibaba increase its stake in Lazada from 51% to 83%, singles’ day, and online shopping revolution.

On the other hand, Tokopedia also had some major momentum such as the new US$1.1 billion investment from Alibaba.

Consistent growth from Shopee

In January 2017, the search interest gap between Shopee and Bukalapak was huge. But in early December 2017, their search interest is slightly higher than Bukalapak.

As one of the youngest players, we saw a lot of effort from Shopee to close the gap with other players; from initiating their mobile shopping event, strengthening their seller's community and many other initiatives.

Other than search interest growth, we also found that every event such as an announcement or promotion will affect search interest.

Here is what we found:

• Jump in Lazada during 19-25 March, because of their fifth-anniversary promotion.
• Jump in all e-commerce during 28 May – 17 June, because of the Ramadan period. People were looking for gifts.
• Bigger jump in Lazada during 11-17 June, because Alibaba increased its stake to 83%
• Jump in Tokopedia during 1-7 Oct, because Alibaba invested in them
• Jump in Shopee during 8-14 Oct, because of their mobile shopping event 10.10
• Jump in all e-commerce during 5-11 November during Single’s Day
• Jump in all e-commerce during 10-16 December during the 12.12 sale

2. Top 10 most visited e-commerce sites

To analyse this, we compiled Similarweb’s data from January – November 2017. We ranked the top 10 e-commerce sites based on their average monthly visits in every quarter.

Here is what we found:

Lazada and Tokopedia always in the top two positions

In the table, we can see that both Lazada and Tokopedia are always in the first and second position. The data from Similarweb shows the same results as the Google Trends data.

For Lazada we saw that they did a lot of huge online promotions, such as during their anniversary in March (Q1), Ramadan in June (Q2), 11.11 and 12.12 (Q4).

For Tokopedia we also saw aggressive moves. For example, in January they launched a train ticket booking system, in February they collaborated with Unilever. As a response to the huge number of Muslim people in Indonesia, in June they launched a new feature called “Online Zakat”.

Another minor supporting element for their rank was when Jack Ma the founder of Alibaba Group officially become an advisor for Indonesian e-commerce.

Bukalapak in the top three

Bukalapak stayed in the fourth position Q1 and Q2. But in Q3 and Q4 (Oct-Nov) they were in in the top three.

This could be because in 2017 they did a lot of interesting stuff, from campaigns to a new feature called "Buka Emas” where you can buy gold on their platform.

They also received new funding and now say they are a unicorn.

Shopee joins the big five

In Q2 Shopee was in the seventh position. But with all the promotions, programmes, and campaigns, they managed to end in the top five.

Up one for Blibli

Blibli was in the fifth position for Q1 and Q2, but in Q3 and Q4 (Oct-Nov) they went back to fourth position.

In 2017, Blibli made an interesting move by acquiring an online travel startup Indonesia flight. In the same year, Blibli also acquired one of the biggest online travel agencies in Indonesia, Tiket.com.

Blibli also collaborated with one of the biggest FMCG companies, Unilever to have more product options for their users.

Jump in Zalora

In Q1 and Q2, Zalora was not in the top 10. But in Q3 they entered at the tenth position, and in early Q4, they are in the eighth position.

We saw Zalora hold a lot of big promotions during Singles’ Day and on 12.12. All these activities might impact their monthly visitors.

Top five most popular mobile shopping apps

In this part, we collected data of the ranking of mobile shopping apps (Google Play and App Store) from App Annie between January – December 2017. We ranked the top five mobile shopping apps in each quarter.

Shoppe dominates mobile shopping apps

On average, both in Android and iOS, Shopee is in the first position.

This could be because from the time they launched in Indonesia, they branded themselves as a “mobile C2C market place”.

We also saw their special programme called “Mobile Shopping Day” that they initiated in 10.10 this year.

Tight competition between Lazada and Tokopedia

Lazada has a higher rank compared to Tokopedia in Android. Their average rank in 2017 is two, Tokopedia, three.

In contrast, Tokopedia’s rank in iOS is higher than Lazada. Their average rank in 2017 is 1.75, and Lazada 2.5.

Stable rank for Bukalapak

Based on the data we collected, both in Android and iOS, on average Bukalapak is in the fourth position.

The most popular e-commerce sites in social media

On average, Indonesians spends three hours and 16 minutes a day on social media. With these figures, it’s a must for e-commerce players to optimise social media as a marketing channel.

In this part, with the help of our Socialbakers, iPrice collected data on the top five most popular e-commerce sites in social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter).

Blibli is the king of Twitter and Facebook

Blibli’s Facebook and Twitter have the biggest number of followers.

Based on our analysis, it is because of their unique type of content, not only selling products but also educating users. And, their response in Facebook is a super-fast “within minutes”.

Hijup the queen of Instagram

As they are a fashion-type e-commerce site, it's crucial for them to create social media posts that focuses on the visual. Instagram is the best place for that.

Popular online shopping events in 2017

In 2017, we saw a lot of different online shopping events from different merchants. Here, iPrice collects and analyses data on three online shopping events in Indonesia.

As one of the biggest Muslim countries in the world, Ramadan is a big event for Indonesia.

• People in Indonesia use sahur (breakfast) to shop online. There was a 400% jump in this period at 5am.
• They also use lunch time to shop online. 50% jump during this time

Single’s Day

During Singles’s Day, iPrice compared the search interest of e-commerce in Indonesia and analysed online shopping behaviour.

• Lazada, Shopee, and Bukalapak are the most popular online stores in most of the provinces in Indonesia
• There was a huge jump in Lazada at 1am in the morning and 1pm
• Tokopedia’s search interest was still high even when they didn’t have special promotions on Singles Day
• After 11.11 search interest of all online shops fell

Year-end sale 12.12

After 11.11, iPrice considered user behaviour on 12.12 by using Google Trends Data.

• Top five e-commerce stores based on Google Trends were Lazada, Tokopedia, Shopee, Bukalapak, and Zalora
• There was a big jump in Lazada on Dec 11 at 9pm. This was due to a special concert on national television
• Huge jump in all top five e-commerce sites on Dec 12 Dec at 10am – 1pm