In the glimpse of dotcom bubble memory, I still remembered there once an online supermarket store established by Lippo Group. Named as Lippo Shop, it served Jabotabek area by delivering our usual groceries. It was in 2000. The Internet connection was pretty much slow and so was the mood of online business. Many people in Indonesia didn’t even knew what Internet is all about, while I didn’t even understand how people pay its transaction using archaic payment system. Historically, it failed badly because of mismanagement and the inability to deliver customers’ orders. At that time, Lippo hasn’t even created its own hypermarket retail chains.
The year is 2012. A big retail chain is about to reinvent the wheel. Hypermarket giant Carrefour Indonesia, originated from France, is soon to open online store to sell products from its Small Medium Enterprise (SME) partners. In Spain, online grocery store from the local Carrefour (and also in other European countries) is common, but it’s definitely something new for Indonesian chain. The current online presence of Carrefour Indonesia only tell about catalogs and some other promotions.
According to the chairman, Chairul Tanjung as cited from Kontan [in Indonesian], the new online store will be affiliated to Indonesia’s biggest portal Detik. Both Carrefour Indonesia and Detik are owned by CT Group. Unfortunately it won’t come sooner than Eid (al Fitr).
Today’s infrastructure in Indonesia sees better Internet connection, better logistic distribution and more accountable payment system. People become familiar with online commerce environment. It comes to our logic sense that Carrefour-Detik partnership will learn from Lippo Shop’s mistake. Yet the problem arise eventually is not only about the system. It may come from the customers themselves.
Having an online grocery store feels like telling other people to go to supermarket and buying the goods on the list for us. While it may save our time to do something else, the level of satisfaction may not be as high when we’re picking the goods ourselves. Grocery is about buying stuffs we eventually need, not just wanted substances. The feeling is totally different and may lead to hesitation on trying the online service.
We are pretty sure it won’t replace the regular grocery habit anytime soon. Nonetheless, it will give new perception on how online commerce help common people getting through the daily life.
I thought it was ‘Hypermart’, ‘Giant’ and “Carrefour’ join forces and stuff…
“Grocery is about buying stuffs we eventually need, not just wanted substances. The feeling is totally different and may lead to hesitation on trying the online service.”
I disagree. While groceries seem to be “remeh temeh”, it is a very standard product. There’re no disputes on how sweet a particular sugar brand is. People knows. There’s no shopping satisfaction to begin with. This is a great advantage over “will this skirt color suits me” or “will the size actually fit”.
Given the infamous traffic jam factor, I bet Carrefour can reinvent home shopping.
if you’re telling about buying small stuffs like we use to do in minimarket then yes it will definitely help. But for some people, me included, monthly grocery in the weekend is actually fun activity to do with spouse and family.
Don’t want the feeling to be totally replaced by online shopping, really.
yeah, may lead to misleading. But it’s the suitable “title” for Carrefour.
I just want to precise that Carrefour Indonesia’s capital is splitted in two between Carrefour Group & holding (60%) and CT Corp (40%).
Regarding the evolution of online shopping in Indonesia, I agree with the comments saying that it will never replace grocery shopping for those who need to “touch & feel” the products, and find “fun” to go to Carrefour. It will never replace this experience, but will create a new one and will become an alternative for those who want to shop fast and get rid of the macet outside the store and inside the store.
Everybody was saying the same thing when Rakuten started selling electronic goods ! “It will never work”, “I need to touch the camera before buying”. Now, they are a big player.
Regarding Carrefour plans, time will tell.