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One year into its launch in the Indonesian market, JD.id has grown into 300 employees with 14 categories and 103 subcategories

Chinese B2C e-commerce platform JD.id today celebrates its first anniversary in Indonesia by announcing plans for the market.

Apart from upcoming new categories such as movie and airline tickets, the company also stated that it is going to build five to six new warehouses across the country.

The platform currently has 14 categories ranging from mother and baby to electronics goods, and already has three warehouses in Jakarta, Surabaya, and Pontianak.

It also operates its own logistics company called Jaya Ekspres Transindo (JX).

“What makes our business model unique is that we do more than just selling and buying; we also build an infrastructure. Promos and discounts are merely gimmicks, an entry point for customers to try shopping in our platform. What we are selling here is actually service and trust,” explained Teddy Arifianto, Head of Corporate Communications & Public Affairs, JD.id.

Though the company declined to mention the exact value of investment for the Indonesian market, Arifianto said that JD invests heavily in infrastructure and human resources.

“By building our own warehouses, we are investing in one of our greatest assets, apart from our human resources,” he said.

Starting operations in November 2015, JD claimed to achieve 30 to 50 per cent month-on-month growth ever since its launch.

With an office in South Jakarta, JD currently has 300 employees and it “keeps on growing.”

Also Read: Alibaba does not dominate China, JD.com poses real threat to the e-commerce giant

Human touch

As with many e-commerce business operating in the country, apart from infrastructure, Arifianto cited customer education as the greatest challenge they have faced within the past one year.

“There are several channels that we are using to educate customers, one of them being customer services [officers]. The thing about Indonesian customers is that, when they buy something, they tend to not read the instructions … Here they prefer oral communications through phone calls,” Arifianto said.

JD also embraces O2O as a way to reach out to potential customers, an ongoing trend for e-commerce companies worldwide.

The company is hosting a pop-up bazaar at a West Jakarta mall for the whole March, with more than 30 brands participating.

“Even in this digital era, in Indonesia, face-to-face communication remains key. We believe that the online platform cannot stand alone; it has to be complemented with offline platform,” Arifianto.

Investors from China are flocking in to the Indonesian market, which is believed to be similar to China at the height of its internet industry.

While e-commerce giant Alibaba enters the Indonesian market through an acquisition in Lazada, JD.com is one of the few to set up its own brand in the market.

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