I

ndonesia’s food and beverage (F&B) industry has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic as people opt to stay in rather than go out for meals, data from a payment gateway show.

According to data from PT Moka Teknologi Indonesia, a homegrown start-up that provides digital cashier services to more than 30,000 merchants in Indonesia, a number of industries have experienced losses due to the pandemic, including the service and retail industries. But the data revealed that the F&B industry has suffered the largest impact.

“For the F&B industry, of the 17 cities that were observed, 13 cities experienced a significant decrease in their daily earnings,” the company explained in a report released on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the service industry saw a noticeable impact in 10 out of the 17 cities, and the retail industry was hit in seven cities, according to the report.

From more than a dozen cities and provinces affected, Surabaya in East Java and Bali saw the biggest fall in daily earnings.

The F&B industry in Surabaya plunged 26 percent, while Bali experienced a decline of 18 percent, followed by areas in Greater Jakarta, including Depok in West Java, Tangerang in Banten, West Jakarta and East Jakarta.

“Business players must be able to survive for the next three to six months. There needs to be a temporary change in business processes for the cash flow to remain positive,” Leonard Theosabrata, president director of SMESCO, a government institution responsible for training and facilitating small and medium enterprises, said as quoted in the report.

Leonard offered several strategies applicable for businesses during difficult times like these. He suggested that business players use the opportunity to make some reviews, get to know their customers and their needs, simplify their business processes, identify the products that are easy to sell, digitalize products into an easy-to-share catalog, add goods stocks and give incentives to well-performing employees.

In an effort to maintain a positive cash flow, businesses can focus on promotions for takeout deliveries, use a database of customers to communicate promotions through email, text messages and promote the use of digital payment, the report suggests.

A focus on takeout deliveries has become one of the key strategies because data shows that there has been a change in consumer behavior, with more people opting for takeout food.

Between January and February, takeout food purchases increased 7 percent.

In terms of the depth of the impact COVID-19 has had across industries, the retail industry saw the steepest fall. The five areas that were most affected in their retail sector were West Jakarta, South Tangerang, Depok, Central Jakarta and Bandung in West Java, with the biggest daily earnings decline recorded in West Jakarta with a 32 percent fall in daily earnings per outlet.

In the service industry, the five most impacted areas were Depok, Bekasi, East Jakarta, Batam in Riau Islands and Bandung.

However, several outlier products have seen a swell in purchases, including masks and hand sanitizer, as people rushed to get their hands on the products in a bid to safeguard themselves against the new coronavirus. In February alone, sales of hand sanitizer went up 209 percent, Moka data shows. (ydp)