Online store Gramedia.com has changed its name and domain to Grazera.com. One of Kompas Gramedia group’s online units made the change earlier this week and announced it over text messages to its customers and partners. As of 12 June 2013, gramedia.com has been redirected to the new grazera.com and the logo will reflect both names for the foreseeable future to assist the public with the name transition.
Grazera.com which is run by Gramedia Digital is different from GramediaOnline.com the online arm of the Gramedia Bookstores, the retail division of the Kompas Gramedia’s publishing group. The country’s media behemoth had grown so significantly over the last five decades that some divisions and business units ended up having overlapping products, services, and initiatives especially when it comes to the web.
Edi Taslim, director of Kompas Digital which oversees Gramedia Digital and Kompas.com informed DailySocial that the name change was brought in because the online store will be expanding its product portfolio beyond published materials. In other words, the name Gramedia had been very strongly associated with printed media such as books and magazines and since the company plans to add other products, it seems that the group prefers if the public knows the store by a different name.
Taslim also said that Grazera.com will eventually incorporate Gramedaonline.com as well so as to reduce the previously mentioned overlapping interests. Being the head of the company’s digital unit, he wants the group’s digital businesses to be streamlined and made more practical. This way, it will reduce public confusion and clarify what each unit does.
Currently Grazera.com operates under the digital group of Kompas Gramedia which is the purview of Edi Taslim, but down the line, following its merger with GramediaOnline.com, the merged unit will be handed over to the Kompas Gramedia’s book publishing and retail group, according to Taslim. Unlike the major rebranding of Kompas.com, the group’s online news portal, there was no public announcement nor a big event and nothing seems to have changed on the website aside from the name and web address.
It remains to be seen whether the change will also affect the Gramedia bookstores across the country after Grazera online store has been handed over to the retail unit, but given the trust and association the Gramedia name has built over the years as a popular bookstore, a change to that seems unlikely.