Updated and upgraded: the key players in Indonesia’s beauty commerce space

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IN FOCUS

In today’s newsletter, we look at:

• Our updated map of the key players in Indonesia’s beauty commerce sector
• What TikTok Shop’s success in Vietnam means for SEA

Hi there,

Traveling to Jakarta for the Tech in Asia Conference last year, I was struck by the scale of the shopping malls there. The conference was held in the Pacific Place Mall, which was far larger – and grander – than anything I’ve seen in Singapore.

Indonesia has an abundance of these large malls, which provides plenty of options for brands like Sociolla, the country’s leading online beauty marketplace, to set up its physical stores.

Sociolla, which has over 60 branches across the archipelago, is one of the companies featured in this week’s Big Story – a landscape map of the key players in Indonesia’s beauty commerce space by my colleague Jofie. In March alone, the firm opened new stores in Jakarta, Surabaya, Bogor, and Cirebon.

Esqa, a direct-to-consumer makeup brand, also recently opened its first retail store in the country, located in Pondok Indah Mall 2 in South Jakarta.

However, not all of Indonesia’s beauty commerce brands are doing as well. A number of players, from PamperPop to Newman’s, are no longer active.

While the beauty commerce industry is riding on strong macro trends, this is a timely – if sobering – reminder that most startups don’t end up succeeding.

— Simon

THE BIG STORY

The key players in Indonesia’s beauty commerce space (update)

Image credit: Timmy Loen

While beauty commerce in Indonesia rode the ecommerce wave amid the pandemic, funding for the sector declined sharply in 2023.

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