Indonesian ecommerce startup Blibli opens cashless physical store

Indonesian ecommerce site Blibli has opened its first brick-and-mortar store, establishing an offline presence for its BlibliMart online grocery brand.

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Blibli took a cashless and cashier-less approach for the new store to cater to millennials’ fast and cheap shopping preferences, reports from local media said.

To make a purchase, buyers can scan product barcodes through Blibli’s app. They can then pay using the startup’s own digital payment service, Blipay, or Gojek’s GoPay.

“Sixty-six percent of shoppers are omnichannel shoppers, shoppers that use both online and offline platforms for their shopping needs. That’s why the retail store will hopefully bring us to these omnichannel [consumers],” Fransisca Krisantia Nugraha, Blibli’s senior vice president of trade partnership, told reporters during the store’s debut.

With the addition of retail stores, Blibli aims to triple the 313% order growth and double the 227% gross merchandise value that its grocery business posted last year, the exec said. The startup also looks to achieve 600% product growth this year, as well as an 82% merchant increase per year.

The store’s concept is similar to Amazon Go, which also offers a cashless and cashier-less experience for consumers. Unlike its US-based counterpart, however, the BlibliMart retail store still requires its customers to check out their purchases with a shopkeeper to prevent theft. The store also has on-site Blibli staff to help shoppers adjust to a cashier-less shopping system.

According to Blibli’s vice president of development, Sherwin Sasmita, the company uses its online consumer data to determine the product preferences of consumers within the vicinity of its retail store. This is done to ensure stock availability and enable Blibli to offer suitable products, he said.