Indonesia’s Bukalapak turns eight

• Recently became a unicorn alongside Go-jek, Traveloka, and Tokopedia
• Plans to operates its own R&D centre in mid-2018

INDONESIAN e-commerce firm Bukalapak celebrated its 8th anniversary as one of the country’s biggest marketplaces recently.

Over the past eight years, Bukalapak has been continuously working to elevate all Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Indonesia as part of its commitment to help advance the digital economy.

Along with the development of Bukalapak, SMEs that joined this marketplace also grew rapidly with three times average revenue increase in 2017.

Bukalapak currently has 35 million monthly active users across Indonesia, which means that 30% of Indonesian netizens have visited Bukalapak.

In addition, Bukalapak's transaction amount per day reached 320,000, which is equivalent to to three to four times the growth in transaction numbers.

“We see our success as a series of milestones or stages, not an end point. Bukalapak continues to grow every year, and it is all thanks to the support of the entire population of Indonesia, especially the users of Bukalapak and the “Pelapak” (SMEs).

“And also to our employees who have dedicated the time and extraordinary creativity to the development of Bukalapak,” said Bukalapak founder and chief executive officer Achmad Zaky (pic).

Bukalapak was founded by Achmad and Nugroho Herucahyono in 2010 with the aim to advance SMEs in Indonesia.

They started their business in the homestay market and tried to convince SMEs to join Bukalapak one by one. Along with the growing number of SMEs incorporated in Bukalapak, the Bukalapak Community began to be established in 2012 as a forum to share success stories in selling things online.

The company now has more than 1,200 staff and total of 2.2 million “Pelapak” as well as 80 Bukalapak communities across the country.

As reported by Jakarta Post, Bukalapak has become an Indonesian startup unicorn along with Go-jek, Traveloka, and Tokopedia.

However, Achmad refuse to disclose information about investors, “Our investors are not able to release an official statement regarding this yet.”

Desire to become nation’s best asset

Achmad also shares that the biggest challenge for him and his company is not to think about the competition out there, but to focus on being a customer-centric company.

“Bukalapak wants to be the best asset of Indonesia. We want to be the largest employer in Indonesia, a source for SME welfare in Indonesia, and the largest taxpayer in Indonesia.

“We are not only focusing on growing our business, but we also want to continue to grow with SMEs, by encouraging them to continue to work and produce crafts creatively and market them through our marketplace with the aim of extending its marketing reach. SMEs are the backbone of Indonesia's economy,” he adds.

In order to fulfil this vision, Achmad disclosed that Bukalapak has started working on its Research and Development Centre (R&D) at Bandung, West Java and plans to start operating it in mid-2018.

“We picked Bandung because many technology-based institutions and universities are located there. We also aim to have 200 engineers to build and innovate there.”

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