Part of the funds will be used to open up new markets in Vietnam and Malaysia, as it currently already operates in a number of countries including Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore.

“The investment is in expanding to the two countries, as well as the technology and building the infrastructure,” aCommerce Group CEO Paul Srivorakul said recently.

aCommerce is confident that with the new funding, it could develop an integrated platform that enables its customers to connect and distribute their products across different channels.

With this strategy, e-commerce players can boost sales because the products would be available everywhere, both in online and offline distribution channels.

Consumers nowadays do not care about where they get products, either through the business-to-customer (B2C) or customer-to-customer (C2C) markets.

What they considered to be more important was whether they can get products at an affordable price and in a timely manner, said Srivorakul.

“Now, if you want to buy Eiger products, it should be in the marketplace, it should be on a brand website and it should also be offline in the stores,” he said.

E-commerce is predicted to contribute 20 percent of Indonesia’s $357 billion retail market by 2020. It is predicted that 11 percent, or $43 billion, will come from the B2C platform, and 9 percent, or $31 billion, from C2C.

aCommerce is optimistic that the service it offers to clients — digital marketing, IT development, multichannel retailing and delivery — could help e-commerce players to grow.

Despite helping their consumers expand their businesses domestically, aCommerce is also keen to make local companies such as Eiger, which produce apparel for outdoor adventure, go global.

Adreant Tendo, head of e-commerce at Eiger Indonesia said the company had been aggressively expanding its businesses online by creating its own website and collaborating with several marketplaces in Indonesia, including Blibli.com, Lazada and Shopee.

Currently, the contribution from online is only two percent of the firm’s overall sales. Next year, the company hoped that online purchases could contribute between 8 and 10 percent of total sales by 2020.

During the celebration of national online shopping day (Harbolnas) last November, the company was able to record 2,200 online transactions in four days, more than double compared to the previous year.

The online market is also crucial for the firm to widen its consumers’ reach as the demography and purchasing behavior of people who shop online is different from those who come into Eiger’s store.

“One day Eiger must go global. Currently we are a market leader in Indonesia, and we are hoping to expand to Southeast Asia,” Adreant said.

At present, aCommerce serves 60 clients and partners. Of the figure, 90 percent of its clients are global brands such as Unilever, Samsung and Hewlett-Packard, while the remaining are local brands.

The company has targeted to make a profit globally by the first quarter of 2019.

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