Indonesia’s fashion ecommerce firm Paraplou shuts down

On Saturday, October 24, Tech in Asia discovered Indonesia’s fashion ecommerce site Paraplou shut down. The firm posted a farewell message on its homepage, citing reasons of market immaturity, uncertain financial conditions, and a difficult funding environment as the primary reasons for its closure.

Paraplou was headed by Bede Moore and Susie Sugden, two former Rocket Internet managing directors who worked at Lazada Indonesia in 2011 and 2012 before starting Paraplou Group, an ecommerce services provider for premium fashion brands in Indonesia. Many of the companies Paraplou Group served were foreign brands looking to enter the Indonesian market.

Paraplou Group’s ecommerce services page is still up. However, most of its clients like Lee Cooper Indonesia, Jack Nicklaus Indonesia and G2000 Indonesia display messages on their own sites indicating they are temporarily closed. While it’s unclear whether Paraplou Group’s ecommerce services arm is also now defunct, these messages may very well indicate the entire group has closed its doors in Jakarta.

See: Indonesian ecommerce enabler Paraplou Group diversifies. Is it stretching itself too thin?Originally, Paraplou Group offered services under the name Vela Asia. The startup raised a US$1.5 million series A funding round from Singapore-based VC firm Majuven last February. Majuven is run by several prominent business figures in Southeast Asia, including SingPost chairman Ho Kee Lim and former SingTel CEO Lee Hsien Yang. At the time of funding, Vela was a two-year-old company, and claimed to have captured an “appealing section of Indonesia’s online fashion market.”

The following April, after the inception of Vela Asia’s own ecommerce site Paraplou, Moore and Sugden rebranded Vela Asia as Paraplou Group. The switch, they said, was an effort to keep all of their ecommerce activities under the same company umbrella.

Tech in Asia has reached out to Paraplou for a statement and advice for the budding fashion ecommerce community in Indonesia. Moore, the startup’s co-founder and managing director, has been unreachable for comment. We will continue coverage on this story if more details come to light. Further, we’d like to tip our hats to Moore and Sugden for helping propel Indonesia’s fashion ecommerce awareness.

Is Indonesia’s ecommerce landscape ready for premium foreign fashion brands? What does Paraplou’s closure mean for the nation’s online retail sector at large?