Tokopedia

Tokopedia is an Indonesian technology company specializing in e-commerce. It was founded in 2009 by William Tanuwijaya and . It is an Indonesian unicorn along with ride-hailing company Gojek, travel service firm Traveloka, e-commerce company Bukalapak and fintech company OVO.
In 2019, according to a report by iPrice Group, Tokopedia was the most visited e-commerce website on a desktop in Indonesia between July and September with a total of 65,953,400 average monthly visits, securing 25% of the total market share.
On 15 December 2020, it was reported that they were considering going public through a SPAC-merger with Bridgetown Holdings (NASDAQ:BTWN) backed by Peter Thiel and Richard Li. The estimated valuation of the post-merger company is between US$8 and US$10 billion USD.
In February 2021, Gojek is reported to be near merger with Tokopedia before public listing in US and Indonesian stock market.
 However, both Tokopedia and Gojek haven't confirmed the speculation yet.
On 17 May 2021, Tokopedia and Gojek has announced the completion of their merger and established a new holding company called GoTo.
History.
PT Tokopedia was founded by William Tanuwijaya and Leontinus Alpha Edison on 6 February 2009. The company manages Tokopedia.com, which was publicly launched on 17 August. The founders, who were born and raised in small cities in Indonesia, tried to solve the discrepancy issues in the country. Thus, the company mission is to democratize commerce through technology. Starting with a marketplace business, Tokopedia has now grown into a technology company with marketplace, fintech, payment, logistics, fulfilment and new retail businesses. The company's name comes from combining "toko", Indonesian for "shop", with "encyclopedia".
Investments.
In 2009, PT Tokopedia received initial seed funding from PT Indonusa Dwitama of IDR 2.5 billion. In the following years, Tokopedia attracted capital injections from global venture capitals, including East Ventures (2010), CyberAgent Ventures (2011), NetPrice (2012), and SoftBank Ventures Korea (2013). In October 2014, Tokopedia managed to make history as the first technology company in Southeast Asia to receive a US$100 million investment (around IDR 1.2 trillion) from Sequoia Capital and SoftBank Internet and Media Inc (SIMI). In April 2016, Tokopedia raised another $147 million. In 2017, Tokopedia received $1.1 billion investment from Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. Again in 2018, the company secured $1.1 billion funding round led by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding and Japan's SoftBank Group putting its valuation to about $7B.
In November 2020, Tokopedia has received funding from US-based internet firm Google and Singapore state fund Temasek Holdings.
Business products.
The marketplace is Tokopedia's best-known product. Tokopedia provides a free C2C business platform for merchants and buyers. The marketplace helps merchants reach more audience than other channels. There are also official stores for well-known brands to do their B2C business. Through its marketplace products, Tokopedia offers millions of products in 25 categories. As of November 2019, Tokopedia had over 7,000,000 merchants with more than 200 million curated products ranging from food and beverages to beauty and fashion products.
Tokopedia also provides digital products such as credit, BPJS payments, utility payments, telephone payments, credit cards, flight tickets, event tickets, games vouchers, and many more.
In 2016, Tokopedia offered financial technology (FinTech) products that include digital wallets, investments, business capital loans, virtual credit cards, protection products, credit scoring based on data for a loan, and many more. In 2018, Tokopedia launched "Mitra Tokopedia" application to sell these FinTech products.
In 2017, Tokopedia launched Deals Products to help people find the best deals from eight main categories, including beauty, travel, and activity. It helps offline businesses to expand their businesses online. 2017 also became one of Tokopedia’s memorable year by moving into a 53-floor building called Tokopedia Tower, located in the central business district of Jakarta. In the same year, Tokopedia received another round of funding at 1.1 billion USD, led by Softbank and Alibaba Group.
On 12 December 2018, "Fortune" reported that PT Tokopedia had raised another $1.1 billion.
In 2019, Tokopedia's gross merchandise value (GMV) reached IDR 73 trillion (USD 5,1 billion) in 2018 and the value is expected to increase to IDR 222 trillion (USD 15,6 billion) in 2019, equivalent to 1.5% of the Indonesian economy. In the same year, Tokopedia expand its service by launching a Smart Fulfillment service called TokoCabang. This fulfillment service aims to help sellers to expand their business across Indonesia. Tokopedia also launched Tokopedia Salam, an inclusive service that supports Sharia Market needs in Indonesia which also provides Umrah service for Indonesians.
Data breach.
On 2 May 2020, Tokopedia suffered a data breach. The leaked 15 million login details include users' gender, location, username, full name, email address, phone number and hashed passwords. Tokopedia spokesperson Nuraini Razak confirmed that a breach had taken place and urged users to change their passwords periodically to ensure their security. A few hours later, the same hacker went viral under the pseudonym ShinyHunters for having put sale the full Tokopedia database, this time with 91 million records for $5000. Tokopedia has since been working closely with several strategic partners, including the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology and the National Cyber and Crypto Agency, to conduct a thorough investigation, while enhancing the security system in order to maintain user confidence.
Transactions.
As of December 2020, Tokopedia claims to have more than 350 million product listings and 42 digital products. It has over 100 million monthly active users and over 9.7 million merchants on the platform, 86.5% of whom are the first-time entrepreneurs.
Businesses and Services.
Marketplace and Digital Goods.
It's a free C2C business platform for merchants and buyers. Merchant tools that empower merchants to do more. As per October 2020, Tokopedia's marketplace has over 350 million product listed from 9.4 million merchants. It also has Official Stores for brands and 42 digital products to simplify user's lives.
Fintech and Payment.
This service provides digital wallet, affordable investments, merchant loans, virtual credit card, insurance and protection products, and other variety of financial products that are affordable and easily accessible to all Indonesians.
Logistics and Fulfillment.
Tokopedia support its marketplace business by providing an integrated fulfillment and logistics system. Customers can choose their preferred package arrival time which will be accommodated by their logistic providers. In 2020, this service has reached 98% percent of district in Indonesia.
Mitra Tokopedia.
Mitra Tokopedia is an app that lets everyone especially small business owners, such as grocery stores, warung (stalls), and individual sellers, to sell digital products on the app, including data packages, electricity tokens, game vouchers, etc.
With the app, Tokopedia looks to provide a solution for traditional retailer to participate in the digital world, bridging the physical stores and e-commerce。
Tokopedia Salam.
Tokopedia Salam is a new sharia-compliant service, which allows its users to shop a comprehensive selection of trusted Muslim-friendly products and services. The platform collaborates with various Islamic charitable institutions to allow users to make donations online, including mandatory charities during Islamic holidays. Moreover, Tokopedia provides sharia-compliant payment methods including BRI Syariah, Bank Muamalat and Mandiri Syariah. It also offers sharia investment products like Tokopedia Emas and Tokopedia Reksa Dana Syariah.
Tokopedia salam also provides Umrah service that focuses on providing trusted umrah travel packages to Tokopedia's customers. Through this service, Tokopedia be the first online marketplace that provides "umrah" travels to its customers, while Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world. As per 2019, almost 20 certified travel agents have joined Tokopedia Umrah. Garri Juanda, head of Tokopedia Salam, said that the number of agents will grow substantially, considering that there are more than 900 "umrah" travel agents registered at Indonesia’s Minister of Religion.
Shopping Festival.
Waktu Indonesia Belanja
Since July 2020, Tokopedia officially announced an evening of celebration with a monthly shopping festival ‘Waktu Indonesia Belanja’ (Indonesia Shopping Time) as their commitment to providing convenience for Indonesians in fulfilling their daily essential needs, while offering them an interesting and entertaining shopping experience.
Various exclusive and unique content were enjoyed by the audience, including an appearance and interview with Tokopedia’s brand ambassador, BTS. The significant success of the BTS session resulted in the Tokopedia x BTS collaboration being ranked the number one trending topic worldwide on social media. Additionally, the preliminary WIB TV Show was watched by 1 out of every 4 TV viewer across Indonesia (data by Nielsen as per 30 July 2020 from 11 cities), more than 1 million times from Tokopedia’s video streaming platform ‘Tokopedia Play’. Additionally, more than 5.000 items sold every minute during the evening celebration of WIB which lasted two hours on 29 July 2020 with more than 40 thousand boxes of Tap Tap Kotak were opened per minute.
Tokopedia so far is consistently hold the WIB TV Show every month, enlivened by various national and international guest stars.
Advertising campaigns.
BTS as brand ambassador.
On 7 October 2019, Tokopedia announced that the K-pop supergroup BTS would become its brand ambassador. William Tanuwijaya, Tokopedia's co-founder and CEO, said BTS's journey and vision, along with the messages they consistently convey, are in line with Tokopedia's vision. He said: “BTS is a group that has been able to change the music industry, despite facing various limitations and challenges throughout their journey. We really appreciate their strong commitment to innovation and spreading positive messages, which makes BTS the right partner to convey Tokopedia's message to the world." The campaign produced multiple commercials of BTS members dancing and promoting Tokopedia while speaking Indonesian.
Blackpink as brand ambassador.
On January 2021, Blackpink also joined as Tokopedia's brand ambassador. Blackpink, which is under YG Entertainment, is chosen as Tokopedia’s Brand Ambassador due to the strong influence of its members, namely Jisoo, Jennie, Rose and Lisa, in the music industry. Even the group’s appearance at Tokopedia’s Waktu Indonesia Belanja (Indonesia Shopping Time) TV Show last November 2020 garnered much attention from fans around the world.
References.
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