Jakarta. E-commerce Blibli, also known by its ticker symbol BELI, plans to double down on its business-to-business (B2B) segment as there is still so much room for growth in this sector. in the company's strategy amid the looming global economic crisis in 2023.

The company has developed its e-procurement solution, namely the Blibli for Business.

“We truly believe [B2B] will become a major growth driver next year. The government considers e-procurement as a must-have," Yohanes Lukiman, the SVP and business development head at Blibli, said recently.

As for this year, Blibli said it would adopt a long-term strategy and strengthen its omnichannel. 

“Since its founding, Blibli has always focused on creating a sustainable business. This has become our native DNA, and it has never changed to this day,” Yohanes said.

He added that Blibli could outperform the e-commerce sector this year, thanks to its omnichannel ecosystem. BELI is also aiming for an aggressive expansion of its offline stores, particularly in Tier-1 and Tier-2 cities. 

Blibli has partnered with smartphone giant Apple as a reseller. To date, Blibli has established two offline stores under the name Hello to resell Apple products. Blibli plans on expanding its Hello branches, Blibli stores, as well as its multi-brand trade-ins, according to Yohanes.

“The demand for Apple products is highly resilient against inflation. I would say this is the most strategic partnership for Apple in Indonesia, and it also spurs Blibli’s growth,” Yohanes said.

Blibli is also aiming for better synergy with subsidiaries Tiket.com and Ranch Market.

Blibli revealed that the customer overlap across the three platforms is lower than 10 percent, meaning there is still a huge room for a cross-sell and upsell. 

The economic crisis has become quite a hot topic when discussing the 2023 global economic outlook. The Russia-Ukraine war has led to a rise in commodity prices and sparked inflation, including in developed economies.

Nathaniel Naldo Widjaja, the investor relations at Blibli, said Indonesia was quite fortunate as one the world’s largest commodity exporters. According to Naldo, Indonesia can enjoy high exports as commodity prices rise. 

Government data shows that Indonesia’s economy grew by 5.31 percent in 2022, even higher than G20 nations such as the UK (4.1 percent) and the US (2.1 percent). Indonesia also booked a trade surplus of $3.87 billion in January. This also marks the 33rd month in a row for Indonesia to record a surplus. 

Naldo said Indonesia was also quite resilient amidst the looming global economic crisis in 2023.

“The government’s decision to raise the interest rate, stabilize the exchange rate, intervene in the foreign exchange market, etc, hopefully, can make our economy more resilient in 2023,” Naldo said.

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Blibli reported Rp 10.5 trillion in consolidated net revenue in the first nine months of 2022. This marks a 98 percent growth from Rp 5.3 trillion booked during the same period the year before. Blibli’s total consolidated processing value (TPV) grew 105 percent from Rp 19.8 trillion in the first nine months of 2021 to Rp 40.6 trillion during the same period in 2022.

As of Sep. 2022, Blibli’s omnichannel solution has booked over 27,000 Click & Collect and Blibli InStore. More than 160,000 micro-enterprises and grocery stores have partnered with Blibli. Also, Blibli launched an electric delivery fleet operated by its in-house logistics provider Blibli Express Service (BES) Paket.

Tiket.com is also increasingly showing its contribution as the government lifted the Covid-19 curbs, coupled with the growing demand for tourist attractions and leisure.

Blibli has also strengthened its synergy with its subsidiaries Tiket.com and Ranch Market. Blibli last year launched the Blibli-Tiket unified ecosystem equipped with single sign-on (SSO) and loyalty parity for the two platforms.

In late 2022, Blibli made a historic initial public offering (IPO) at the Indonesian Stock Exchange (IDX).