Gojek Tokopedia Merger Will Positively Impact Consumer and Industry

Major news, the thing everybody was talking about in the first week of 2021, is the seemingly imminent merger of Gojek and Tokopedia, Indonesia's two most valuable tech startups. Unlike the weakly rumor of a merger with Grab, the discussion I've had in different channels about the potential integration between Gojek and Tokopedia is super exciting from a lot of different angles. Here's my analysis of how the merger can impact.

Consumer Impact

From a consumer point of view, this marriage of complementary products will be tremendously magical. Transportation infrastructure, e-commerce, and finance all under one integrated product? That's every consumer's dream, hyperlocal commerce! Today, we have same-day delivery which works most of the time. The integration between Gojek and Tokopedia can produce something even better, Amazon Prime-style instant same-hour delivery, helping push e-commerce transaction and customer satisfaction even more while increasing driver utilization rate making it more economical as a business.

Gojek has basically done this hyperlocal commerce model through their GoFood platform, where customers can get the food they order in an instant, sometimes less than 30 mins. The integration with Tokopedia will connect this logistical infrastructure with Tokopedia's merchants, which is a major advantage for Tokopedia amidst the neck on neck competition with SEA's Shopee.

And that brings us to another market that practically all the unicorns have been focusing on: the SME industry. Both Gojek and Tokopedia has a big user base of SMEs under their platform, albeit with a different type of needs. Minimum overlap, mostly complimentary. Gojek is a time-sensitive service-based SME (restaurants, stores, warungs) and Tokopedia is more like a craft, product-based SME. Both unicorns have also been doing a major effort in SME digitalization through Point-of-Sales, merchant marketing apps, even providing growth capital.