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Executive Column: Tech winter is a good opportunity to invest, Bukalapak says
Bukalapak has undergone a gradual change in management and business focus since 2019, which has allowed it to chase high margin segments and avoid making significant efficiencies.
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Bukalapak president Teddy Oetomo (Bukalapak/-)
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ounded in 2010 as a general marketplace, Bukalapak has expanded into online to offline (O2O) services, gaming and financial services and more. A change in management and business focus over four years ago has allowed the firm to cut subsidies and move closer to profitability.
The Jakarta Post's Aditya Hadi sat down with Bukalapak president Teddy Oetomo on April 4 to discuss the company's current strategy and its plans moving forward amid the tech winter.
Question: What are Bukalapak's services right now, and how do they connect to each other?
Answer: We have three main businesses, namely general marketplace, vertical ecommerce, which specializes in one or a few products, and an O2O service named Mitra Bukalapak.
When we started with the marketplace Bukalapak.com, we realized we could not be the masters in the hundred categories available on the website. Thus, we tried to look for some that we could do better. One of these was gaming.
In gaming, we are not focusing on demand generation, which may need subsidies. What we do is ensure the supply is better and cheaper. So, it's not about burning cash, but about how we find good and reliable sellers. It's pretty similar to a conventional business.
However, compared with other vertical ecommerce platforms that started from zero, we have Bukalapak.com and its traffic. After securing the supply, we can "harvest" the demand from our marketplace.
