In our last commentary on Shipper’s case studies, we compared three different wellness industries (beauty, sleep, and baby care) and how Shipper’s proprietary warehouse management system (WMS, also referred to as Smart Warehouse System) played a role in driving the retail expansion of brands in these industries.
In this case study review, we look at how Shipper’s supply chain management platform does not just support the expansion of brands but also unlocks untapped industry growth and develops industry maturity.
It specifically highlights the value of integrating inventory management, order fulfillment, and ecommerce enablement solutions into a single platform, capturing the most common pain points of brands as they scale up.
In particular, we zoom into three industries — herbal products, personal care (shampoo), and agricultural (plantation) products — as covered on case studies on Shipper’s blog.
(1) Unlocking ecommerce potential of herbal products
Out of approximately 33,000 species of medicinal ingredients with potential for use in herbal remedies in Indonesia, currently only about 800 species are utilized as traditional medicine ingredients. Among the 30 species recognized for standard herbal remedies, only 12 to 14 have become phytopharmaceuticals, or medicines derived from natural ingredients that have demonstrated safety and efficacy through preclinical trials. (Source)
With Indonesia’s pool of supply, there is untapped market opportunity for herbal products not just locally but also for exports globally through ecommerce. One of the companies in this space, Ekiwi, is an ecommerce startup focusing on herbal products, including cosmetics and supplements. The challenges of upgrading their inventory management and order fulfillment is where Shipper came in with a fully integrated solution that includes their Warehouse Management System (WMS), SKU management, shared warehouse services, real-time dashboard reporting, and a 99.9% SLA guarantee.
Linking operational efficiency and inventory management to customer satisfaction has been key for this partnership between Shipper and Ekiwi.
(2) Unlocking growth for brands to innovate in personal care products
In Indonesia’s beauty and personal care product industry (worth US$9.17B this 2024 according to Statista), personal care is its largest segment, estimated to have a market volume of US$3.88B in 2024. Especially when considering the surge in demand for halal certified products in this space, the demand for personal care products remains ripe for innovative products to meet market needs.
This market has attracted global brands like OGX Beauty, a shampoo brand which entered Indonesia to the US through a local company. As the demand for their products has grown, OGX has been confronted with challenges on operational efficiency, warehouse management, and ecommerce management.
OGX found a partner in Aloshop with its ecommerce enablement solutions that are integrated with Shipper’s network of warehouses. In six months of partnering with Aloshop, the brand saw 150% increase in GMV, 4x increase in orders, and improved customer satisfaction.
(3) Unlocking growth for innovative distribution in Indonesian agriculture
Indonesia’s agricultural sectors remains a main driver of economic growth, with its GDP growth in Q4 of 2023 reaching 1.30% (vs the national economy which grew 5.05% on an annual basis C-to-C. (Source)
This has made it attractive to companies rethinking the way goods go from farmers to consumers. Sosrait is one such company distributing raw materials (agricultural and plantation products) from farmers straight to consumers (both through offline and ecommerce channels) since 2021.
They collaborated with Shipper to overcome key challenges they faced that limited their customer fulfillment capacity. A combination of inventory management and ecommerce enablement solutions helped Sosrait to translate operational efficiency into customer satisfaction, achieving 5-star ratings on all ecommerce platforms. The company also reduced its last-mile delivery costs.
Key Insights from the Case Studies
(1) Customer satisfaction needs to be backed by high SLA guarantee / operational efficiency. Linking operational efficiency and inventory management is key for an enabler to deliver on the promise of improved customer satisfaction across various ecommerce channels.
(2) Supply chain component can accelerate growth when high market demand meets well developed inventory management. Such was the case for one partner of Shipper’s that saw a 150% GMV increase in the first six months of working with them.
(3) Tying together ecommerce channel management with increased supply chain efficiency enables brands to innovate new forms of distribution (e.g., farm to table) in a fragmented, high transport cost market like Indonesia.
Paulo Joquiño is a writer and content producer for tech companies, and co-author of the book Navigating ASEANnovation. He is currently Editor of Insignia Business Review, the official publication of Insignia Ventures Partners, and senior content strategist for the venture capital firm, where he started right after graduation. As a university student, he took up multiple work opportunities in content and marketing for startups in Asia. These included interning as an associate at G3 Partners, a Seoul-based marketing agency for tech startups, running tech community engagements at coworking space and business community, ASPACE Philippines, and interning at workspace marketplace FlySpaces. He graduated with a BS Management Engineering at Ateneo de Manila University in 2019.
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