Elsa Rosidah’s convenience store serves villagers and visitors to a nearby mosque in the sprawling and sparsely forested outskirts of Pekanbaru city on the tropical Indonesian island of Sumatra. She exclusively traded in cash until October when a sales team from an ecommerce start-up persuaded her to venture online.
Rosidah says that since then she regularly fills her daily credit limit of Rp1 million $70 by buying such items as electricity vouchers and cigarettes online for her customers and charging the digital retailer a small commission. The 28-year-old said the ecommerce site’s special offers were a clincher.
“They offered many discounts and other marketing gimmicks. They...
¬ Haymarket Media Limited. All rights reserved.
