Coming of Age

Entrepreneur's Story

By: Agustinus Gius Gala

Globe Asia-22 Desember 2008. Given the current economic environment, any increase in economic activity - let alone advertising - would be a surprise. Beating the trend, interactive advertising on Indonesian Internet sites shows the new web-savvy generation has come of age.As the lifestyles of Indonesians change and people seek to satisfy their needs with the least amount of waste of time and energy, the Internet with its inexhaustible information database has become the source of consumer service for products ranging from toiletries and cosmetics to cars and homes.

A number of big websites such as www.jual-beli.com and www.pasarbaris.com have developed expertise in serving consumers effectively as well as snatching a sizeable portion of advertising revenues every year. Several other new websites are serving web surfers, happy to get up-to-date information on what is happening in and around Jakarta.

What's on in Jakarta

The www.whatsnewjakarta.com is a well-designed, comprehensive website which aggressively keeps abreast of what's new in Jakarta, as its name promises. Deisy Wong, the creator of the website, says she got the brainwave to create the website while on holiday in Cambodia. Judging by the 24,000 email addresses in her archives over the past three years since opening the site, she seems to have succeeded in giving Indonesians a hip and detailed website where they can log on to for day-to-day needs.“We get 40,000 hits a day and in January 2008 we measured 9.2 million hits,” says Deisy, who plans to change the site's design this year.

The web site offers the latest events, cinema, nightlife and restaurant information besides a large data base of other useful information for the `Jakartan.' The large number of advertisers is impressive too including service companies and numerous well-known restaurants and clubs.

A new component is the garage-sale section where just anyone can get information on where the next garage sale will be held. “One man's rubbish is another's treasure,” goes the saying and people love to flock to garage sales to get good quality items at great bargains.

Advertising on-line

Indonesia's on-line media have seen a surge in advertising dollars and the next few years also look positive. Nukman Luthfie, CEO of Virtual Consulting, speaking at the `New media: The end of conventional media?' seminar in Sanur, Bali, recently, says the share of on-line advertising will inevitably grow. ”Currently, the share enjoyed by the on-line media is quite small but the situation is set to change in the next few years as the on-line media will acquire a bigger share of advertising budgets.”Advertisers are expected to keep spending on on-line ads especially in an economic downturn because they feel they are paying for ads that are performance-based.

It's easy to track when a consumer clicks on an ad to visit an e-commerce site, and advertisers can feel the presence of the consumer by just watching the number of hits on the web site.

The new awareness of the value of an on-line presence is driven by the growing level of Internet use in the country. Out of a total 30 million users in Indonesia about 44% surf the web everyday, spending an average of two hours a day on-line.Data released by Zenith Optimedia states that the share of on-line advertising will see annual growth of 23% during 2008-2010. At the same time the advertising shares of newspapers, magazines and television media will gradually decrease.Hartaty Budiman, product manager of the JobsDB website, says that the most popular product for on-line advertising is banners placed directly on the front page of a site.

Eddy S. Tadja, managing director of JobsDB, says one advertisement placed by stationery company Standard Ballpoint won 4,113 hits in its first two weeks in the public domain.“Several multi-national companies are very satisfied with the responses they have received to the ads they have placed on the web site,” he says.JobsDB Indonesia itself is a part of JobsDb.com, the Hong Kong-based provider of online recruitment services in the Asia-Pacific region.

Security

While web shopping has its upside, there are also downsides. Given the lack of ability to inspect the merchandise before purchase, consumers are at a higher risk of fraud on the part of the merchant than in a physical store. On the merchants's side, there is the risk of fraudulent purchases using stolen credit cards or repudiation of an online purchase payment. As the web is accessible at any time to anyone, workplace on-line shopping has given rise to the problem of reduction in work efficiency.

ISACA, a non-profit association that serves more than 86,000 IT security, assurance and governance professionals globally, has carried out three simultaneous surveys (two in the US and one in the UK) to look at the latest trends in on-line shopping and workplace Internet safety. A mere 21% of respondents said their organization's employees fully understood the risks associated with shopping on-line from their workplace computers. More than 82% said their organization either does not have or they are not aware of a policy that prohibits employees from shopping on-line. There was also an expectation that there would be more on-line shopping from the workplace than last year, with over 51% predicting an increase. Only 32% of organizations that allow on-line shopping educate employees about the risks.

Slightly over 31% of organizations prohibit using a work e-mail for on-line shopping or other on-line non-work related activities, even though allowing the use of work e-mails can expose the organization to greater volumes of spam.Back in Indonesia, industry players say there is a discernible requirement for better consumer satisfaction with on-line services, which need to concentrate on more than just profitability. On-line monetary transactions via Paypal also need to become more user-friendly to Indonesians as they learn to trust secure web sites with their credit card details. Very few websites have this level of security and for the moment rely on bank transfers.

There is a long way to go for all the problems in the industry to be sorted out, and in the meantime building and operating web sites remains a costly affair that has to provide tangible returns to the investor.From the consumer's point of view, although it is heartening to know we will soon be able to punch a keyboard and order anything on-line, it is also important to feel secure in the knowledge that our confidential information will not be leaked to the many fraudsters lurking out in cyberspace.