Indonesian e-commerce firm Blibli.com has opened its first brick-and-mortar store for its grocery brand BlibliMart and, in a nod to Amazon Go, the outlet offers a cashless and cashier-less service for tech savvy omnichannel shoppers.

According to Fransisca Krisantia Nugraha, SVP of trade partnership at Blibli.com, two-thirds (66%) of shoppers now use both online and offline platforms, which is why she hoped the new retail store will “bring us to these omnichannel [consumers]”.

She also noted that Indonesia had a US$200bn grocery market opportunity, with 1% worth US$2bn forecast for e-commerce.

The new store, which is located at the Sarana Jaya building in central Jakarta, is aimed at establishing an offline presence to complement BlibliMart’s growing online business, The Jakarta Post reported.

By offering a cashless and cashier-less shopping experience, it intends to cater for the fast and cheap shopping preferences of millennials, who will be able to use the Blibli app to scan product barcodes and pay via the Blipay digital service or Gojek’s GoPay.

As such, the store appears at first sight to be the Indonesian equivalent of US-based Amazon Go, although it differs in that BlibliMart customers are still required to check out with a member of staff to prevent theft.

However, those employees are also on hand to help customers as they adjust to the new cashier-less system. “There are still a lot of questions from the customers and there are a lot of connection problems too, so we provide free wi-fi,” Nugraha explained.

Despite these teething problems, a test run conducted by Blibli.com in November last year resulted in the retail store registering more than 1,000 orders a day.

And according to Sherwin Sasmita, the company’s VP of development, its collection of online data greatly helps to determine consumer product preferences and check availability.

“We can identify the market segment,” he said. “We can identify what people in Jakarta buy from our online data, what people in the area [of the store] buy.”

Sourced from Jakarta Post; additional content by WARC staff