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Social Commerce, Indonesia, and India

Indonesia has the potential to be a huge social commerce nation. Although online spending in Indonesia may not be high right now, a lot of companies are pouring in resources to get ready for an expected social commerce wave in the country. According to research by Booz and Company, it is predicted that revenue for the global social commerce market will soar to $30 billion by 2015. The Jakarta Globe also recently reported on research conducted by DBS and marketing consultancy firm MarkPlus that revealed each person spends around Rp 150,000 ($16.50) monthly in Indonesia. In contrast, the U.S spent a total of $38 billion in the first quarter of 2011. That averages out to about $51 per person.

Social Commerce Opportunities

Immediate revenue isn’t the current goal, but rather most companies like Yahoo and Multiply are positioning themselves to ride the wave in Indonesia. Even in Japan , I understand there are several social commerce-related companies which are looking to expand to Taiwan , Hong Kong or Indonesia . These countries have a high number of Facebook users, especially Indonesia and Taiwan at 35 and 12 million respectively.

However this is just a start. Indonesia has a population of more than 240 million users and only 45 million of those are online users. Out of that group, 35 million are Facebook users. With the Indonesian government pushing hard to increase national internet penetration, the country looks like a good bet to be a rising tech-savvy nation with monetization coming at a later stage as the nation becomes more affluent. India is also another huge market to watch for potential social commerce opportunities. India has more than 25 million Facebook users and about 3 million Twitter users. India’s 100 million Internet users (out of total population of 1.2 billion) were expected to generated $10 billion in e-commerce sales this year. A fair share of that could be generated from social commerce. While Facebook and Twitter are important elements of social commerce, sales don’t necessary need to be generated through social media . The group buying model, for example, is a successful form of social commerce. Anything that turns social influence into sales is considered social commerce. It’s exciting time ahead for both Indonesia and India, and I’m sure several entrepreneurs are already poised to ride this social commerce wave.