Chris Antonius says Honestbee does not wish to limit itself by setting targets. Read on to learn why

The year 2017 started off full of excitement for Honestbee. Not only has it has made its offerings in Singapore more complete with the launch of a food delivery service, but the online grocery service has also launched its official entry to the Indonesian market.

Fostering a partnership with supermarket chain Transmart Carrefour and other retailers, Honestbee is now available in the Greater Jakarta Area, including Depok, Tangerang, and Bekasi. The partnership also allows Honestbee to have its own dedicated checkout lane at Transmart Carrefour outlets, enabling Honestbee shoppers finish their errands faster.

While Honestbee Indonesia wants to focus on introducing its online grocery service at the moment, there is a strong possibility that it will introduce its on-demand laundry, food delivery, and garbage pick-up service (which is currently available only in Taiwan) to the market.

“We can’t possibly limit our services to ‘just online grocery store.’ At the beginning we felt that personal shopping assistant is what was needed the most, but we are not going to limit ourselves,” Honestbee Indonesia Country Director Chris Antonius shared during an interview with e27 at the startup’s office in South Jakarta.

“This is why we have a bee on our logo — because a bee is the most hardworking animal, everything can be done. In the end, our vision is to make life easier,” he added.

Also Read: Grocery concierge Honestbee raises US$15M funding

Check out the edited excerpt of our conversation with Antonius, joined by Tony Alexander, Country Marketing for Indonesia:

What will be your strategy to compete with existing online grocery shopping services in Indonesia?

Antonius: If we were considered competitors because we are providing similar services, then perhaps we can be considered competitors. But Jakarta has such a big population, so we may not be competing [for the same market segment].

In fact, I think we are actually in this together, in our effort to educate the society. Our true competitor is ignorance. If possible, we would like to be able to educate a certain segment of the market, while the other online grocery services are educating the other segment. I think that is where the business will be.

Is there any benefit to not being the first-mover in terms of entering this market?

Antonius: Before I started working in Honestbee, I have already dabbled in the tech industry for a while. From my previous experiences, [I learned that] timing may give an impact, but it is not that big of an impact. Because securing market share in Indonesia does take time.

So, if a similar service was already in the market for one, two year before me, it’s not going to be a handicap for me. The winner is the one who can provide the better service, better product, such as better user interface, higher service level … I think these are the things that are more important for the society, instead of who showed up first.

International expansion since early on seems to be a crucial part of Honestbee’s business strategy. Tell us more.

Antonius: True. Since our head office is in Singapore, so Southeast Asia is definitely an area that is close to us, with our founders being Singaporeans. But we also see that Southeast Asia currently has around 700 to 800 million people, plus Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Japan. So we are in a market with at least 900 million people, in the countries that we have operated in. It’s a big market.

Also Read: So what, exactly, is the differences between grocery startups?

Honestbee has been operating in Indonesia since last year, but only officially launched in January. What are the most valuable lessons you have learned about the Indonesian market?

Antonius: The key learning, for the time being, [is that] we have offered several promotions and they are pretty well accepted. But since we haven’t grand-launched ourselves back then, from marketing perspective, we were moving in silos. We haven’t done any mass campaign. We did some office-to-office, mall-to-mall [events] but it was on a small scale.

But I believe the response was good enough. Since we were able to receive positive inputs, I feel that this has become an energy for us, that makes us feel confident about our launch.

Alexander: Another key learning is that Indonesian people love to communicate. We have personal shopping assistants who have the capability to accept special orders, for example, when you buy chicken, you can specifically ask them if you want it to be cut into six, eight pieces. Or you can specify how ripe you want your bananas to be.

This is something that is quite different from other markets. In Singapore, once they’ve finished ordering, then that’s it. But in Indonesia, they like to have someone to talk to.

How is the next one year going to be like for online grocery shopping business in Indonesia?

Antonius: I try to imagine it as with my own family. For my family, grocery shopping means two things: An experience where I can bring my children to shop for things, and this is something that we don’t wish to replace. It’s that experience. There will always be people who are going to the mall, the supermarket, it’s a form of family entertainment. It’s something that we would like to endorse: spending more time with your family.

But if there is a certain situation or moment wherein you need to shop for groceries but you’re too busy, and the traffic’s too bad, that is where we can jump in to help.

I asked this question to every online grocery shopping startup that I have interviewed. How do you convince my mother, who is quite tech-savvy for someone of her age but is very loyal to her favourite vegetable vendor, to use your service?

Antonius: For many housewives, going to the market is a form of happiness of its own, and we do not intend to replace this experience. But if there is a need to shop at supermarkets [and you’re too busy for it], then what we can offer you is service and trust. We have our personal shopping assistants there and it will be as if the housewife herself is doing the service, making sure that the products bought have the farthest expiry date, that there are ice packing for your frozen food.

I’d like to imagine situation where both the husband and wife are working, and they have spent two hours on the road, but when they arrive home, so will their groceries.

These are the things that we can help with. We do not want to replace, but to help.

Also Read: Millennials and GenXers dominate online grocery shopping in SEA

Any specific plan for 2017?

Antonius: The good thing is that we have just begun. It’s just like our peers in Singapore; when we first started, we never set any target four ourselves. Why should we limit ourselves by target?

I’ve been asked before, how many sales do you target to make each day? If I target for 1,000 orders per day, would that be too big or too small? We’ll never know … There are 15 million people in Greater Jakarta Area, and if one family has four members, then we have three million. Even 10,000 orders, compared to three million families, the number is still too small.

So the target for ourselves is the quality, instead of the quantity — making sure that each delivery is on time.

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Image Credit: Honestbee Indonesia

The post Our true competitor is ignorance: Honestbee ID Country Director talks strategies and key learnings appeared first on e27.