July 28, 2022
Source: SIRCLO.
Celebrating nine years, SIRCLO helps businesses, especially MSMEs, transition to digital commerce in Indonesia. With services like SIRCLO Store, Warung Pintar, and IbuSibuk, it integrates sales channels, boosts productivity, and connects mom influencers with brands.
Having begun its journey from a commitment to help local businesses in building web stores, this July marks SIRCLO’s nine-year voyage in the industry of commerce. In terms of meaning, the number nine denotes perfection and the highest value in Roman numerals, which for us signifies a new beginning to achieve even bigger accomplishments.
Through various corporate actions and initiatives that we continue to pursue in an effort to help everyone grow strong together by selling in a wide array of channels, we divide our solutions into three pillars, namely solutions for Enterprise; solutions for Entrepreneurs and SMEs; and New Retail and Micro-businesses, such as warungs and micro-influencers.
With the purpose of fostering social impact and sustainability, one of our primary goals is to assist micro, small, and medium-sized businesses in reaching greater heights.
Empowering MSMEs
In 2022, SIRCLO Group recorded almost one million users from the micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSME) sector within its ecosystem, involving brand owners, warungs, and micro or nano-influencers. These users are spread out across 514 cities and 34 provinces in Indonesia, and engage in 12 product categories, with the most prominent ones being Food & Beverage, Clothing & Accessories, Beauty and Body Care for Mother and Baby, and Furniture & Home Appliances.
Furthermore, 60% of all registered MSMEs are active users of SIRCLO Store, Warung Pintar, and IbuSibuk services, demonstrating the increasing uptake of digital solutions within the traditional retail sector.
From 2021 to mid-2022, the MSME sector contributed approximately 61% of the total gross merchandise value (GMV) of SIRCLO Group. This achievement was complemented by an increase in income of 34% compared to the previous year.
Digital Solutions to Drive Business Efficiency and Productivity
SIRCLO Group aims to use technology to provide a platform to boost the efficiency and productivity of MSMEs. This section details SIRCLO’s impact on MSMEs through three primary channels: SIRCLO Store, Warung Pintar, and IbuSibuk.
SIRCLO Store for Omnichannel Integration
SIRCLO Store is a service that integrates online sales channels, including marketplace, website, and chat, for local brands.
SIRCLO Store targets many pain points commonly faced by MSMEs seeking to transition online. For example, Ibu Ema is an MSME owner who found difficulties managing online sales across various channels, such as when entering catalogs or managing sales. She takes up to two days to manage her business orders. Due to stock that is not integrated across channels, Ibu Ema has encountered mismanaged orders, such as wrong quantities and the type of item sent.
When managing online sales across unintegrated channels, MSMEs encounter five main effects:
An online sale takes 12 to 15 hours to prepare.
Brands lose four to six hours managing sales stock and orders.
Poor stock and order management drive four out of 10 incoming orders (40%) to experience delivery errors.
Operational costs increase to two million per month for admin salaries managing online sales.
Increasing brand entity and credibility is hard for 10% of brands because they do not have a website.
SIRCLO Store thus helps brands integrate up to 10 online sales channels, web stores (e.g. brand.com), social/chat commerce (WhatsApp), and marketplaces (Tokopedia, Shopee, Bukalapak, JD.ID, BliBli, Lazada, Zalora, and Zilingo).
The sales dashboard allows owners to control product stock, monitor sales performance in each channel, manage incoming orders, estimate shipping costs, and handle chat and consumer complaints. Regular business assistance is also provided to help improve online sales management and establish a strong brand.
With SIRCLO Store, local brands save 100% time on processing previous orders and have access to more sales channels. Monthly operating costs are also 30% more than paying salaries to employees for managing online sales. With a website, brands can also gain credibility in the eyes of consumers.
The impact on business operations goes hand-in-hand with an increase in turnover and sales. Brands surveyed reported that monthly transactions rose from 300 to 400, customers increased from 700 to 800, and turnover grew by 150%. Furthermore, 80% of local brands’ sales came from the integrated channel managed by SIRCLO Store.
Warung Pintar for Improved Business Productivity
Warung Pintar provides the most complete end-to-end solutions for the warung business ecosystem in Indonesia. As warungs have traditionally operated completely offline, Warung Pintar helps owners make a seamless digital transition, at the same time making shopping a more convenient process for consumers.
For example, to fulfil her warung needs, Ibu Esih and 3.5 million other retailers need to approach wholesalers and agents, which takes two to four hours. They need to visit more than two stores due to incomplete products and operational costs amounting up to 20 to 30 thousand for gasoline, parking fees, transportation tips, children’s pocket money, cigarette money, and so on. While completing her warung needs, Ibu Esih lost potential sales because it had to close.
Brands, principals, and distributors feel the same — it is difficult to carry out product promotions and collect data regarding distribution channels of goods, warungs, and consumers. Yet, traditional retail still comprises 70 to 80% of all sales.
Hence, to provide solutions that are applicable for all retail players, particularly warungs, Warung Pintar offers an integrated technology-based retail distribution system that emphasises transparency and collaboration.
With Warung Pintar’s platform, digital wholesalers from home can receive goods within 24 hours of purchase, whereas other platforms require 35 hours. The certainty of stock fulfilment is high, at approximately 80 to 90%, and operating costs for wholesalers are reduced by up to 10% of daily turnover. Furthermore, warung operations are optimised through promotions and trade marketing, with an average incentive of 450 thousand rupiahs per programme.
As a result, warungs’ average turnover of goods increased to 4 million per week, up 45% from before. Daily turnover also increased from 750,000 rupiahs to 1.1 million rupiahs. Two out of three warungs participate in the platform’s promotion programme and 30% receive financial assistance, which averages around 3 million rupiahs.
IbuSibuk for Bridging Momfluencers and Brands
IbuSibuk is a service that brings together ‘momfluencers’ — or ‘mom influencers’ — and brands through a single platform.
This is in line with the rising trend of momfluencers. For example, Ibu Izza is among 45 million moms in Indonesia who chose to focus on taking care of the household after getting married. Her aspiration to stay productive has acquainted her with the influencer marketing industry, allowing her to work from home and generate additional income by producing content.
However, within the influencer industry, brands often struggle to find the right promotional channels. It takes a long time to determine which influencer suits the brand’s goals best, with brands usually filtering them one by one. There is also no standard established. Each influencer has a different procedure that the brand has to follow, from content to payments and reporting. Furthermore, it takes more time and cost if a brand wants to run its own campaign.
IbuSibuk thus aims to empower moms to be more productive as influencers, connecting them with brands that focus on mother, child, and baby products. At the same time, brands’ marketing operations are made easier with a standardised platform.
Momfluencers at IbuSibuk can run an average of seven endorsement projects each month, an increase of 2.5 times compared to other platforms. Its clarity system also offered 45% better incentives and benefits compared to other platforms, recording a satisfaction rate of 5.3 out of 6.
SIRCLO’s Impact on the Ecosystem
SIRCLO Group is committed to reaching a wider and more diverse range of 65 million MSMEs, especially those outside of Java. This thus contributes to inclusiveness and equitable use of technology, helping accelerate national economic recovery.
While assisting MSMEs in growing their businesses, SIRCLO Group simultaneously seeks to improve society through technology. We have identified a range of social impacts, namely: inclusivity impact, socio-economic impact, and environmental impact.
SIRCLO Group strives for inclusivity in its operations. Currently, 65% of MSME entrepreneurs in SIRCLO Group are female; this number has increased by 71 times since 2021. SIRCLO’s technology services also provide opportunities for everyone to sell online, including people with disabilities. According to a recent study, SIRCLO Group’s MSME ecosystem comprises 0.71% of people with disabilities.
Furthermore, SIRCLO’s services drive efficiency among MSMEs and increase business capacity income, creating prosperity for both MSMEs and surrounding stakeholders. Our studies showed that SIRCLO helps MSMEs enhance their turnover by 34%. SIRCLO also enables businesses to save an average of 20% on operational costs and up to two hours each day, which they can utilise to focus on expanding their business or spending time with their families.
On top of its commitment to the welfare of MSME owners, SIRCLO Group is also committed to environmental protection. We have launched ten environmental projects covering multiple areas, including waste management, recycling, and carbon footprint monitoring programmes.
As an enabler of omnichannel commerce, we will endeavour to evolve and provide a “bridge” to the future by leveraging the potential of everyone. This will be accomplished through constant innovation, comprehensive guidance, and having the best-in-class solutions.
We will reach out to more individuals so that we can achieve greater heights without having doubts or fears—in line with our mission to help everyone sell and grow stronger, together.