People Back Offline, Tokopedia Seller Revenue Remains Stable In 2022

Illustration. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Post-pandemic macroeconomic conditions have an impact on many technology companies, including e-commerce. This also forces digital platforms such as e-commerce to review their strategies to maintain their business.

Based on data from Bank Indonesia (BI), e-commerce transactions in 2022 did not reach the expected target, reaching only Rp476.3 trillion or missing about 2.6 percent of the target of Rp489 trillion.

However, in the midst of a challenging economic situation due to the pandemic and the return of offline transactions in 2022, the ecosystem integration carried out by many technology companies is expected to be able to make the business actors involved in it more resilient.

The toughness of these business actors can be reflected in sellers' income which tends to be consistent or even increasing in the midst of the post-pandemic transition period.

The same thing was conveyed by the General Chairperson of the Raden Tedy Class Rising MSME Community who considered that MSMEs are required to enter the digital world so that they can develop and increase sales so that they can move up the class.

"Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, one of which is the increase in MSME sales through e-commerce," Tedy said in his statement, Thursday, June 22.

The positive impact of ecosystem integration carried out by technology companies can be seen from the latest study from the Institute for Economic and Community Research, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Indonesia (LPEM FEB UI) on partners of PT GoTo Gojek Tokopedia Tbk (GoTo), as the largest provider of digital ecosystems in Indonesia.

During the launch of the study, the Head of LPEM FEB UI Chairal Nuryakin, Ph.D. said, in 2022, the public in general was still holding back consumption, as can be seen from the household consumption growth index which was still lower than the period before the pandemic.

"However, technology platforms have become the choice of the public for consumption. Thus, the income technology ecosystem partners remain consistent," he said.

The LPEM FEB-UI research data shows that the overall income of Tokopedia sellers remains consistent in 2022 with an average of around Rp. 10 million per month.

If detailed further, the seller of the old Tokopedia (sales who had joined before the GoTo integration) posted an average income of IDR 10.7 million per month, while the new seller (sales who have joined after the integration of GoTo) earned an average income of IDR 7.8 million per month in 2022. The data was obtained based on research on 1,132 traders at Tokopedia.

"In the midst of the transition of consumers to offline shopping, sellers' income at Tokopedia remains consistent," said LPEM Researcher and Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Indonesia Prani Sastiono when interviewed at the same time.

User experience on the Tokopedia application that puts forward comfort is one of the things that makes Tokopedia users not turn away, so that the seller's income remains stable even though the community has started to resume offline.

Through various programs carried out during or after the pandemic, e-commerce platforms such as Tokopedia continue to help business actors, most of whom are MSMEs, to continue to earn their income consistently.

In addition, Tokopedia also helped MSMEs with access to finance through productive loans online. As LPEM FEB-UI research data shows, the percentage of loans received by Tokopedia sellers increased in 2022 to reach 83.2 percent with the most widely used type of loan by Tokopedia being an online productive loan of 10.83 percent of the total respondents. There is an increase in the percentage of loan quantities received by Tokopedia sellers from 80.3 percent from 2021.