Alright, who broke the petri dish? LabSatu is Indonesia’s newest etailer for lab products

LabSatu is an Indonesian online retailer for lab products such as test tubes, test strips, and chemicals, like dyes and acids. In a country where these types of products are not readily available, LabSatu wants to make access to lab products simple.

Before co-founding LabSatu, Hendry Herdy Agus worked as a conventional distributor of lab products for nearly five years. He noticed there was an inefficiency in the way supply and demand was handled for his products.

“On the merchant’s side, we found that often they had a certain stock but the stock was not moving and when the expiry date came, it was lost. Due to Indonesia’s size, it’s expensive for one company to open subsidiaries in each city in Indonesia, so the coverage is limited,” explains Agus. “As a result, for the customer’s side, it’s difficult to find lab products, especially if you live somewhere other than the main island of Java.”

Agus adds that another problem sits in the difficulty that customers have in finding out which merchants keep stock of the products they need. If one stock is unavailable, it can take up to two months to have it imported to Indonesia.

These and other observations led Agus to believe that there is potential for more efficient lab product distribution in the archipelago. LabSatu offers a range of ready stock items and lets customers easily check availability and place orders through the online shop.

A huge market

Agus estimates that this segment could be a US$1billion market in Indonesia. LabSatu targets hospitals, universities, factories, and other industries like the pharmaceuticals sector, research institutions, and test labs.

LabSatu was established in December 2014 by Agus and three other co-founders who are silent partners. One of them has been Agus’ friend since high school, the others he knows through his previous work as lab product distributor. Agus holds a degree in industrial engineering and an MBA from the School of Business and Management at the Bandung Institute of Technology.

According to him, there are LabSatu currently receives around 1,000 unique visitors per month. He believes the traction will increase significantly once the promotion phase begins. In the first half of 2015, he says the company’s goal is to increase its number of merchants and products.

“Merchants join our platform for free,” says Agus. “We get a discount fee from the merchants and make money when the products are sold. Later on, there can also be revenue from advertising.”

Aiming for 10 percent market share

The startup has so far been bootstrapped, but Agus sees the need to raise funds in the future to boost overall performance while investing in human resources and infrastructure.

There are other sites selling lab equipment in the Indonesian market, such as Sawitchem, Tokogunapri, Tokolabonline and Ralali, but Agus does not see them as direct competitors, because most of these sites also offer other industrial equipment, and don’t zero in on lab equipment exclusively like LabSatu.

According to Agus, indirect competitors are conventional companies that sell lab products through sales people who visit customers directly. Agus plans to turn these companies into LabSatu merchants.