Plug-and-play e-commerce with Jasakirim’s logistics platform

Jasakirim provides an API-based logistics platform for e-commerce players, letting businesses easily interface for better processing, delivery and tracking.

e-Commerce logistics provider Jasakirim is hitting the ground up and running, in order to solve the problem of Onigi resellers. In particular, thousands of sellers need to have a robust and integrated logistics platform, which enables users to place orders and manage shipments online.

In an interview with e27, co-founder and CEO Hermawan Tjakradiwiria tells us about his startup, milestones, funding, market size, and market reaction. He also reveals a few interesting things about the logistics business in Indonesia.

You have been running Onigi for some time now, and the new platform is trying to resolve sellers’ concern. What’s the story behind this?

Jasakirim is actually a spin-off product of Onigi, and is currently run by my younger brother and myself. He’s mostly running the daily operation and I do the product development and business development. There’s also an angel investor that provides us with seed funding to cover our operational expenses.

We came out at first out of necessity from our sellers in Onigi. We needed a good, integrated and reliable logistics service that is able to handle the situation wherein our sellers are located in all over the country, and we need to be able to track and trace our shipments and generate the Air Way Bill instantly.

Soon after that, we got introduced to one of the largest logistics companies in the country, and we asked if we could somehow connect to their system. We then found out that they didn’t have any integrated online system at all, which surprised us a little bit, knowing that they’re in the Top 5 but they still have everything running on a paper-based system.

Then we came out with an agreement that we will develop for them a completely new courier and logistics management system, along with track and trace capabilities so that we were able to integrate ourselves with them. The development took us around 3-4 months to build the management panel and the front end. There was only  one person doing the coding, and understanding the entire logistics business process and adjusting to their requirements were the lengthiest parts.

Jasakirim Co-Founders Hermawan and Sungkawa Tjakradiwiria

Would you mind unveiling the name of the logistics company you’ve developed the platform for? And to date, by saying that it’s open for everyone, does it mean it is the same platform offered to the public, or is it already modified to a certain extent?

We are currently working together with ESL Express. I believe they’re somewhere in number 3 to 4 in the country. The platform is open for everyone, so all e-commerce sites can utilize our services. We realize that it’s not so much to our advantage to keep it for ourselves, as it would be better to open it for everyone, as we get a certain commission on every shipment, anyway.

During the development period we realized that there were much bigger opportunities in this project. Either we keep the logistic engine or capabilities within Onigi Stores only, or we could re-package it into a new product and release it to everyone, even competitors. We decided to move on with the latter. So, right now Jasakirim is open for everyone or any e-commerce players who are in need of integrated API-based logistics services.

How many people are involved today?

We practically only put our effort in developing the product. Onigi itself is a small start-up, so we only provide resources to manage and handle the small operation. We are a small team of three people including myself and my brother as co-founders.

How has the market reaction to your service been since its launch?

Apart from Onigi stores that are using the service (around 3,000 stores) we have a limited number of early users or e-commerce sites that are starting to use our service. Some of them are new large Moslem fashion offline retailer moshaict.com, smith.co.id, junkiee.com, and a lot more actually.

We have the service enabled automatically for all Onigi stores. Just recently we started signing up small forwarding companies that do not have domestic shipping capabilities and they would rather use Jasakirim instead, as we give them same rates compared to going to our partner directly. Additionally, we provide them with online AWB generation and tracking system.

How extensive is the market that your startup is targeting?

Everyone needs logistics. It’s one of the backbones of the industry. Our product, Jasakirim is the first in the country that offers an online logistics platform that allows you to make a delivery order and manage your delivery online.

During the development period, we realized that most logistics companies in Indonesia are either not online or don’t have any computer-based system at all. There’s a huge market for us to provide a SaaS logistics management system that allows any logistics company to login and manage their entire business deliveries through our platform.

How flexible is this platform in terms of accommodating different logistics company services? For instance, some of them might not offer end-to-end services (sea, air, land, warehouse).

We have received several requests to handle these port-to-port shipment issues, and it’s actually pretty simple. I’ve come up with some solutions that will allow several logistics companies using the same platform (e-couriers) to connect to each other and forward each others’ shipments. I’ve been working closely together with logistics companies for several months to figure out their problems and found that they all have similar business processes, so it should not be that difficult to implement the system in connection with each other.

Ever since we spread the word about Jasakirim there has been great interest coming in from other e-commerce players who are desperately in need of a good logistics solution with seamless integration. We also provide cash-on-delivery service with the largest coverage area. This is a service that we believe suits the demographic and market condition, as it greatly affects potential buyers’ decisions when they make online purchases.

What are the key milestones for this year?

Our plan is to separate Jasakirim from Onigi and look for some proper funding to help it gain more focus and develop some of the stuff that we are planning to do.

Our target this year is to release “e-Courier“ to several logistics companies who have already shown interest in using the system. Also we hope to launch a reseller-based system, which will allow anyone who wants to open an express delivery service at home to just use our platform and top up their credit.

We have signed an agreement with payment gateway from Kaskus “Kaspay” and soon, once the API is ready, we can provide sellers and buyers in Kaskus a more reliable way of buying through Jasakirim COD service and a more manageable package deliveries.

Featured image credits: Shutterstock

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