Shipping Subsidies Rp. 500 Billion, Local Retailers: Don't Make It Matter For Us, The Average Foreign Product Is Sold

Illustration. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Chairman of the Indonesian Retail Entrepreneurs Association (Aprindo) Roy Nicholas Mandey assessed that the policy of providing subsidies for shipping costs (postage) on the National Online Shopping Day (Harbolnas) Ramadan 2021 will not have a significant impact on retailers.

According to Roy, goods sold online are generally non-FMCG products (fast moving consumer goods). This is inversely proportional to the condition of retail which sells FMCG products.

"Online goods are usually non-FMCG goods. For FMCG, they (consumers) will look for them at outlets because they have to see expiration and all kinds of things," he said as quoted by Antara, Wednesday, April 21.

On the other hand, Roy criticized the postage subsidy policy which was deemed not on target because most products in e-commerce or those sold online were mostly foreign products with cheap prices.

He also doubts the number of local products being sold in e-commerce.

"Many online transactions are products that are not Indonesian products. Foreign products, the cheap ones are Chinese products. Even though we want to love Indonesian products and hate foreign products," he said.

Apart from being filled with foreign products, the quality of the goods cannot be directly ascertained. In fact, according to Roy, to be able to contribute to online sales of domestic products, the quality factor must not be overlooked.

"I think postage subsidies for Harbolnas are not on target because most of them are dominated by foreign products. Second, because the average transaction is for cheap, unique and similar goods, people only buy cheap goods. Whereas what we expect is local goods and quality transactions," concluded Roy.

Previously, the government prepared Rp. 500 billion in funds to subsidize shipping costs from purchasing goods online at Harbolnas which took place on D-10 or D-5 ahead of Eid Al-Fitr 1422 Hijriah.

Coordinating Minister for the Economy Airlangga Hartarto, after a plenary cabinet meeting at the State Palace, Jakarta, Wednesday, April 7, said that the stimulus was to increase public consumption and encourage online sales of domestic products.

Airlangga said this stimulus was President Jokowi's mandate to maintain the trend of economic recovery while continuing to restore public health aspects from the COVID-19 pandemic.