Interactive Shopping Trends Increasingly Popular, Buy Local Program Promotes Sales of Local Products

Talk show Beli Lokal (Ivan Two Putra/VOI)

JAKARTA - The trend of shopping for lifestyle products in Indonesia continues to experience visual and interactive shifts. Consumers are no longer limited to looking at static product photo catalogs, but prefer a direct shopping experience that combines educational content, entertainment, and real-time interaction through live shopping features and Discovery Commerce.

This change in consumer behavior was captured by Tokopedia and TikTok Shop through the strengthening of the Beli Lokal ecosystem - a campaign designed to accompany local business players, ranging from business capacity improvement, legal assistance, to the expansion of digital market reach comprehensively.

The impact of the high adoption of interactive shopping is felt directly by local beauty brands. Group Brand Manager Facetology, Satrio Arief, shared his experience in utilizing the live broadcast feature to reach skin care product users more personally.

"Facetology was born in 2022 with a simple vision, namely to present local beauty products that combine smart science with high quality and affordable prices for the Indonesian people," said Satrio Arief at the Buy Local Collaboration Celebration in Kebon Sirih, Central Jakarta, Thursday, August 13.

Satrio added that live broadcast interactions not only facilitate sales transactions, but also serve as a means of consulting skin problems to places to exchange daily stories with consumers.

"Not only education, but also a session of confession. So they ask, consult, educate, even appreciate. Because by using our products, their skin problems are reduced," said Satrio.

A similar experience was experienced by the food business from Malang, Apelicious. The owner of Apelicious, Lisa Amalia, said that live broadcasts helped convince potential buyers about the quality and authenticity of the raw materials of fruit and vegetable snacks without additives.

"In this live shopping it helps a lot. Usually these audiences make sure they are like they need to be convinced, 'Is this really from fruit and vegetables, not added flour? Is it really not added to the dye?' Because usually they like to tell them they want to snack more healthy," said Lisa.

Seeing this phenomenon, the platform assesses the success of local brands in the digital era lies in the ability to utilize content and communities.

Tokopedia and TikTok Shop Indonesia's Local Business Empowerment, Cut Dartina Rinatha, emphasized the importance of a strategy of approaching relevant content to increase brand visibility.

"If we look at products with good quality, there are definitely a lot of them on the market. What I see from Mas Satrio and Mbak Lisa, they are smart to take advantage of the existing ecosystem on TikTok Shop. So if, for example, on TikTok Shop, we have something called Discovery Commerce, where products can be known from various types of content," said Cut Dartina Rinatha.

The presence of the Beli Lokal ecosystem has also proven to have a real impact on sellers. Until the first half of this year, the number of sellers who participated in this campaign jumped 50 percent compared to the same period last year.

The growth in transaction value also increased by 14 percent with a total of 700 million local products sold in various main categories such as fashion and lifestyle.

Tokopedia & TikTok Shop Indonesia Executive Director, Stephanie Susilo, emphasized the company's commitment to continue strengthening collaboration with stakeholders to create sustainable business growth.

"We believe that every Indonesian MSME has the potential to continue to grow if supported by the right capabilities, opportunities to be more easily found by consumers, and a strong ecosystem," concluded Stephanie.