Google’s Consumer Barometer: Online Transactions in Indonesia Rise
Based on a recent survey conducted by Google, online transactions in Indonesia continue to rise (particularly the purchase of goods through mobile gadgets) despite the nation’s economic slowdown and weak rupiah (which makes imported products more expensive). Henky Prihatna, Google’s Country Head for Indonesia, said the survey shows that Indonesian consumers are increasingly using Internet to purchase consumer goods.
Prihatna explained there are basically two factors that support this trend. Firstly, there are now more and better gadgets available to Indonesian consumers. Secondly, the security of online purchases has improved resulting in more consumer confidence to ‘buy online’.
Google’s Consumer Barometer survey is a survey that is conducted in cooperation with Indonesian e-commerce site Elevenia. It has the following key findings:
• 78 percent of respondents said they purchase goods online through the use of mobile gadgets
• 52 percent of respondents said the products they most frequently purchase online are clothes and jewellery
• consumers mostly shop through online retailers (20 percent), apparel and shoe stores (11 percent), auction sites such as eBay (10 percent), and travel agents (5 percent)
About 2,500 respondents, aged between 18 and 46 years, were interviewed for the survey (which was conducted in the months November 2014 to February 2015). Locations of respondents were the Greater Jakarta are, Bandung, Semarang and Surabaya.
Google is the America-based multinational technology company specialized in Internet-related services and products.
Over the past couple of years the economy of Indonesia has been plagued by slowing growth due to external factors (sluggish global economy and weak commodity prices) as well as internal factors (high inflation and the high interest rate environment). In the second quarter of 2015 Indonesia GDP growth slowed to the six-year low of 4.67 percent (y/y). Meanwhile, amid monetary tightening in the USA and China's recent decision to devalue the yuan, the Indonesian rupiah has been depreciating heavily against the US dollar.