• News

Google, Temasek, and Bain project that the digital economy of Indonesia will grow to USD 109 billion by 2025. This is undoubtedly linked to the high number of e-commerce transactions. For practical reasons, SMEs choose digital platforms.

After previous complaints about the emptiness of traditional markets impacted by e-commerce platforms, it turns out that many SMEs choose digital platforms. This is revealed by research conducted by the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (INDEF) titled "The Role of Digital Platforms in the Development of SMEs in Indonesia." In the research, it is found that 34.25% of SME actors choose digital applications such as e-commerce and social media as their main place to sell online.

It is also found that 50% of SMEs, or more than half of the total respondents, choose Shopee as the main platform they use for online sales in the past year. In addition to e-commerce applications, SME actors also actively use social media such as Facebook Marketplace and Instagram Marketplace as online selling platforms.

Apart from the Shopee e-commerce application, social media applications such as Facebook Marketplace (33.46%), Instagram Shop (28.74%), and TikTok Shop (20.87%) occupy second to fourth positions respectively as the most widely used online selling platforms by SME actors in the past year. Facebook and Instagram social media applications allow users to market their businesses through various features such as Feed, Story, and Marketplace/Shop.

The research also shows three main reasons for SME actors to implement digitization in their businesses. These three main reasons include convenience in online selling (79.13%), wider exposure/traffic (72.83%), and the potential for faster business growth (69.69%).

Previously, Google, Temasek, and Bain projected that the digital economy of Indonesia would grow to USD 109 billion by 2025. Even by 2030, the digital economy of Indonesia is estimated to reach between USD 210 billion and USD 360 billion.

Of course, these projections are closely related to the high value of transactions in the e-commerce sector, which has become a major contributor to the domestic digital economy ecosystem. The presence of e-commerce platforms has also opened up many opportunities for SME actors to further develop their businesses online.

IN