Blibli in Its 8th Anniversary Aims to Extend Partnership with SMEs

Blibli intends to increase order in its platform up to 3.5 times this year. One of the methods is to partner with as many Small-Medium Enterprises (SMEs) as possible.

In its 8th birthday, Blibli showed off some improvements. They kind of doubled up the gross merchandise value (GMV) and increase the active users per month around 15-20 million. The order goes up along the way to 400 percent.

Blibli's CEO, Kusumo Martanto said the company is now focusing to increase the order.

"We're targeting to increase the order by 3.5 times from last year," he said.

In pursuance of the idea, they are to acquire more SME partners. However, SMEs have involved in just 5% of Blibli's economy.

The low contribution is due to the lack of quality and quantity. He took an example of some cases when SMEs aren't ready for massive orders. It also becomes a problem when they can't cope up with social issue for supporting local products.

"Therefore we should hold a workshop. Otherwise, they'll never get bigger," he added.

There are 10 thousand SMEs out of 70 thousand merchants in Blibli. It's a way to accelerate the participation of qualified SMEs. Blibli has held at least 50 workshops and 300 other last years.

“We expect to get to export. For this year, at least to increase to 10 percent,“ Martanto said.

Minister of Communication and Informatics, Rudiantara is fully supporting Blibli's plan for SMEs. He might not come if it's for another e-commerce related to the support of local products. As a reminder, he also stated that 56% of the Indonesian economy is being stirred by SMEs.

“I appreciated Blibli's movement, I might not attend if it's for another marketplace,“ he said.

–Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian