Photo credit: Blanja.com
Blanja.com, one of Indonesia’s ecommerce pioneers, is shutting down. The company announced on its website that all “purchasing activities” will cease on Sept. 1, 2020.
Tech in Asia has reached out to Blanja.com for comment.
Founded in 2013, Blanja was a joint venture between US giant eBay and state-owed conglomerate Telkom. It offered a customer-to-customer marketplace as well as gadgets bundled with offers from Telkomsel, Telkom’s wireless network unit. Blanja has since expanded to a variety of other categories, including beauty products as well as food and beverage.
It’s unclear how much the initial investment in Blanja was, though Telkom and eBay injected US$25 million in 2016 – a small amount relative to what competitors have raised, even at the time.
Since then, Blanja has struggled against the likes of Shopee, Tokopedia, and Bukalapak. According to iPrice data for Q4 2018, Blanja was ranked 15th among the players in this space, with 2.1 million monthly web visits. In comparison, Tokopedia and Bukalapak both notched over 100 million monthly web visits during the same period.
By Q1 2020, Blanja.com fell to 27th place, with just over 400,000 monthly web visits. The company’s founding CEO, Aulia Marinto, left in 2018 to assume another role at Telkom.
Another eBay-backed ecommerce platform is Qoo10, which also counts Indonesia as one of its six markets.
Editing by Eileen C. Ang
(And yes, we’re serious about ethics and transparency. More information here.)
Stay updated on the go with our mobile app.
Get latest insights with smoother, more personalized experience through TIA mobile app.
