Free Shipping Is Still The Most Important Consideration Of Consumers In The Marketplace

Photo: Doc. Antara

JAKARTA - In the midst of a new policy of online shopping platforms starting to charge services, consumers apparently place free shipping costs (postage) programs as an important consideration before shopping at the marketplace (lokapasar).

This proves that the Indonesian people are still quite sensitive to prices. Then, about 42.9 percent of consumers admitted that they would reduce purchases in the marketplace due to the cost of application services, according to the survey by the platform omnichannel social commerce SleekFlow, quoted from Antara, Sunday, August 20.

Lokapasar starts charging users services in the amount between Rp1,000 to Rp2,000 per transaction. In addition, since the first quarter of 2023, the platform has also raised the commission imposed on sellers from 1-4 percent to 5-6 percent.

SleekFlow conducted a survey involving 105 respondents spread across Indonesia, with various backgrounds, such as being at a productive age with the status of a full-time worker. They consist of 62.9 percent of women and 37.1 percent of men.

The survey shows that consumers are now more critical in transacting and responding to price increases. For this reason, businesses need to adapt to diversification of attendance not only in local markets, but also other channels such as WhatsApp, social media, and their own websites or omnichannel optimization.

In addition, this SleekFlow study also proves that 91.43 percent of consumers using marketplaces tend to buy the products needed without thinking whether it's the same shop or not.

In fact, 43 percent of consumers will choose to look for new stores that sell similar products if stores that have been where they shop are no longer in the marketplace. Then, 29 percent of customers choose to maybe shop on other platforms.

With this consumer behavior, online business people who only focus on one platform will find it difficult to reach more customers. For this reason, online business people need to optimize their business existence on various platforms such as, utilizing social media, websites, and instant messaging applications to reach more customers.

Regional GM ASEAN SleekFlow Asnawi Jufrie stated that the omnichannel concept is the key to a business providing a consistent experience to consumers. For example, consumers can find products on the website, ask in more detail on WhatsApp, and eventually create transactions.

"It is impossible for customers to interact with a business through just one channel. The omnichannel approach can be a solution to provide the best customer experience," said Asnawi.

To support the transformation of MSMEs in order to take advantage of omnichannel in their business, SleekFlow as a social commerce platform provides products that help consumer experiences such as, having conversations with consumers via WhatsApp, SMS, Facebook, Instagram, live chats on websites, and various social networking applications and instant applications.