Can I get orders in Indonesia? With questions and expectations, the head of a Shenzhen-based company exporting electronic audio boarded an international flight to Indonesia for the "2023 Indonesia E-Commerce Conference".

The conference brought together the entire Indonesian e-commerce supply chain of platforms, sellers, suppliers and other resources, the e-commerce ecology involving logistics, warehousing, agency operations, ERP, payment, consulting companies and other service providers also collectively appear, more than 800 enterprises on the scene to exchange and share, comprehensive decoding of the Southeast Asian market.

"This is the first time in 3 years that I have travelled abroad to attend an exhibition and meet and communicate with new and old customers. Compared to online, face-to-face communication is indeed much better. The platforms, buyers and service providers that came to exhibit at this conference were complete, so I didn't have to visit and communicate with them one by one. This event has also given me confidence in the market and I believe I will be able to get more orders."

Another businessman who is engaged in trading and exporting in Guangzhou had the attitude of giving it a try. Talking about his feelings on his trip to Indonesia, he said, "I originally had no idea about the Indonesian market and wasn't sure if I could do it. By exhibiting at the conference, I saw the local support for the development of the cross-border e-commerce industry in Indonesia, and various supporting facilities and service providers are being built and improved rapidly, which has enhanced my certainty and confidence in the Indonesian market."

"During the conference, I communicated with some local buyers and will follow up with further field research on the local market situation before choosing the right products to cut into." After this exhibition, this Guangzhou businessman has already started to plan his layout in the Indonesian market.

"The theme of the 2023 Indonesia E-Commerce Conference is "Set Sail in Spring", and it is PingPong's "Let's Go! Cross-border people" to help enterprises to seize orders and expand business opportunities at sea, the first stop in Indonesia is inseparable from the development potential of Indonesia's cross-border e-commerce market. According to Zhang Jun, General Manager of PingPong International Marketing, Indonesia is the most populous country in Southeast Asia and the fourth most populous country in the world, with over 270 million people and a GDP of over US$1 trillion. At the same time, Indonesia's Internet penetration rate is higher than the global average, and the young consumer group is large, with more than 50% of users under 30 years old, and with women as the main consumers. In contrast to the huge market potential, the local penetration rate is below 5%, which is still at a low level.

This is undoubtedly an opportunity for Chinese companies looking to tap into the Indonesian market. The Chinese exporters attending the conference covered the fields of apparel, retail and new energy, such as Mingchuang, Shenzhen Hastone Optoelectronics Technology and Anqi Yeast. The purpose of their participation was, firstly, to understand the development policy and industrial environment of the local e-commerce market; secondly, to access the resources of buyers and sellers; and thirdly, to match the resources of service providers such as logistics, payment and marketing, so as to achieve better development in the Indonesian e-commerce market.

For Chinese companies wanting to explore the Southeast Asian e-commerce market, Zhang Jun shared his observations: firstly, Southeast Asia has a large rural population and a large proportion of low-income people, who are more willing to buy cost-effective goods; secondly, the local supply chain base is insufficient, and most of the daily consumption necessities come from Chinese factories; thirdly, although online consumption habits have been able to develop rapidly since the epidemic three years ago, the proportion of offline consumption is still mainstream. Fourthly, local protection of brands, industry standards and intellectual property rights is in line with the standards of developed countries, and Chinese companies need to pay particular attention to the relevant legal regulations if they want to achieve long-term business in this market.

Behind the opportunities, there are also challenges. Zhang Jun admits that Chinese companies may face challenges such as the scarcity of relevant professionals, high localisation requirements and incomplete industry chains to expand their business in the region. Therefore, he suggests that enterprises can strengthen the complementary advantages of professional talents and relevant knowledge systems through the method of "group warming and division of labour"; strengthen the refined operation of customers in order to further understand the consumption habits and cultural and religious characteristics of customers in the target market, so as to provide them with targeted products and services; and, at the same time, be "be prepared to fight a protracted war" and give full play to its strengths in the entry point of the business scenario and insist on long-term operation.