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Putra Muskita · · 7 min readFrom marketplace to mess: Tokopedia unravels after merger
It all started with a 2 million rupiah (US$122) discount.
Ary Mozta, a Jakarta-based marketing executive, runs a Tokopedia shop where he sells his pre-loved electronic gadgets. In April, the marketplace offered him the above coupon, which he can use to offset seller fees.
There was just one catch: he had to migrate to TikTok Shop.
Image credit: Timmy Loen
The request wasn’t a surprise. After all, TikTok shelled out US$1.8 billion last year in a megadeal to acquire 75% of Tokopedia, just to keep TikTok Shop running in the country.
Mozta complied with the request. However, the coupon didn’t work, and he ended up paying the full amount of 1.3 million rupiah (US$79.5).
On May 4, he complained to Tokopedia’s customer service team. A month later, the issue hasn’t been resolved. Mozta has since stopped selling on the platform.
Nearly 1.5 years after the deal was announced, TikTok Shop is still struggling to integrate with Tokopedia. Frustrated sellers have taken to social media to air their complaints about the process.
As ByteDance remakes Tokopedia in TikTok Shop’s image, merchants and employees worry it’ll be a hollowed-out version of its former self. Massive layoffs at TikTok Shop, possibly as soon as July, are also on the table.
A TikTok spokesperson tells Tech in Asia that it is committed to “continue investing in Tokopedia and Indonesia.”
But beneath the complaints about slumping sales and logistical snags lies something deeper: a sense of loss over an ecommerce platform that was once an important part of many Indonesians’ daily lives. Mozta wrote in a LinkedIn post that he “barely recognizes the place.”
Here’s where the cracks started to show.
The toll on one merchant
One of TikTok Shop’s tweaks? Auto-accepting orders. Not a simple adjustment for Agus Mulyono.
He has run a business card-focused print shop on Tokopedia since 2016. Previously, sellers could manually accept orders, giving them time to check inventory or, in Mulyono’s case, confirm whether a customer’s file was ready for printing.
Sidelined sellers, silent layoffs
Where TikTok takes Tokopedia now
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As Tokopedia turns into a mere unit of a massive global marketplace, merchants and employees mourn the loss of what they considered a made-in-Indonesia platform.
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