Indonesian halal-only social commerce Evermos eyes tenfold increase in resellers in 2020
JAKARTA – Evermos, an Indonesian social commerce platform for halal and Islamic-related products, will use its recent $8.25 million funding injection to multiply its reseller network tenfold this year, Iqbal Muslimin its co-founder and CEO told Salaam Gateway.
Evermos won the Series A funding round from Jungle Ventures, Shunwei Capital and Alpha JWC Ventures.
The Bandung-based start-up founded in November 2018 had more than 23,000 resellers, 200 suppliers and 2,000 products for sale at the end of December last year, according to Iqbal.
“With the new investment, we can tap into a bigger channel that will focus on three things: dawah, education and ummah economy aspects. We can penetrate new channels faster,” the co-founder told Salaam Gateway.
Evermos currently collaborates with several Islamic communities that are onboarded as resellers, including PT Manajemen Qolbu and Islamic social finance non-profit DT Peduli, both part of the Daarut Tauhiid foundation owned by Bandung Islamic scholar Abdullah Gymnastiar.
The start-up also aims to work with more SMEs as suppliers, part of which is to provide Shariah-compliant P2P financing.
“Secondly, we will also allocate new funding for SME supplier acquisition. One of the solutions that we can provide is Shariah-compliant financing for them, as there is a need for riba-free financing and I believe many [SMEs] need financing to double their production, for example ahead of Ramadhan,” he added.
Each reseller that joins Evermos pays 300,000 rupiah ($22) and the platform also receives, on average, a 20% commission fee per transaction.
There remains a big market for resellers or agent business in Indonesia where buyers in second and third tier cities are still unsure how to shop online, especially with regards mobile transactions and mobile payments, according to Iqbal.
“People in the second tier cities are still unfamiliar with online shopping,” said Iqbal.
“It’s the same with resellers, many of them still have no idea how to market and sell products online.”
Evermos will also this year focus on developing an app to educate new buyers and sellers. The app will teach aspects of online sales and marketing to strengthen the platform’s reseller community programmes via social media such as Whatsapp and Facebook, said Iqbal.
Evermos competes with more established Islamic economy e-commerce platforms in Indonesia such as Hijup for modest wear, and Tokopedia Salam, which is the halal-only section of the giant e-commerce platform Tokopedia.
Iqbal believes Evermos’ strength lies in its resellers that provide halal and Islamic-related products as their main value.
“While other players try to add halal products on their existing conventional e-commerce platform, we created this platform from the beginning with a halal products mindset.
“We aim to be an ecosystem for every need of every Muslim.”
Other e-commerce platforms focusing on Islamic economy products in Indonesia include Blibli that told Salaam Gateway in December it will launch a dedicated halal filter in the first quarter of 2020, and Etokohalal, from consultancy group Indonesia Halal Lifestyle Centre, that has set a launch date for March.
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