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Gojek launches website to boost digitalization among micro, small businesses
Gojek stated that there were 500,000 merchants in its ecosystem, 90 percent of which are MSMEs.
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Workers make baking pans for a small business in Kampung Tonggoh, Bogor, West Java, on July 22. (JP/P.J.Leo)
Indonesian ride-hailing decacorn Gojek launched a website on Monday to help micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) go online.
The website, melajubersamagojek.com, provides advice to business owners on which Gojek applications can help them accelerate their digitizational process.
“Going digital is not easy if there is only one part of the value chain that is digitalized. That is why we offer end-to-end solutions,” Gojek co-CEO Andre Soelistyo said during an online press conference.
Gojek offers end-to-end solutions for businesses to go online through efforts such as offering point-of-sales (POS) solutions using the MOKA app, payment solution through Midtrans and GoPay as well as smart keyboard application Selly.
Gojek stated that there were currently 500,000 merchants in its ecosystem, 90 percent of which are MSMEs. It also said 120,000 new merchants had registered in the last four months.
Small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which account for more than half of the country's gross domestic product (GDP), have been particularly hard hit by the economic downturn.
Falling demand has become a major factor affecting small businesses, with 85 percent of MSMEs seeing declining sales between March and June, a recent study by the Demographic Institute of the University of Indonesia's (UI) Economics and Business School in collaboration with Gojek shows. Forty-four percent of them saw their sales drop by more than half.
The study also shows that 94 percent of Gojek’s merchant partners had felt the benefits of going digital within the app’s ecosystem. Almost half of the MSMEs partnering with Gojek’s e-wallet service, GoPay, believe their revenue might return to pre-pandemic levels, while 38 percent are certain.
The Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises Ministry noted that as of June, 9.6 million MSMEs were using digital technology to advertise their products.
“With this trajectory, we are sure we can reach the 10 million digital MSMEs target by year-end,” said the ministry’s human resource development deputy head Arif Rahman Hakim during the same event.
Meanwhile, Finance Ministry expert staff member for tax supervision Nufransa Wira Sakti urged small business players to register themselves for the MSMEs corporate income tax cut.
He reported that only 9 percent, or around 200,000 out of 2.3 million, MSME tax subjects had asked for the tax cut.
“I also urge people to buy MSMEs products so that our economy can run again,” he said during the event, adding that people tended to save their money during the pandemic to prepare for uncertainties.
“However, the more you save, the less money there is for consumption and this can lead to economic stagnation,” Nufransa added.
Indonesia’s gross domestic product (GDP) shrunk 5.32 percent year-on-year (yoy) in the second quarter, the steepest decline since the first quarter of 1999, as household spending, which accounts for more than half of the GDP, fell 5.51 percent yoy in the period. (eyc)
