Introducing ‘PLUS by GoTo’: Convenience Redefined for Indonesian Consumers

PLUS by GoTo offers unlimited free and fast delivery and exclusive partner benefits for an affordable subscription fee.

Shopping online is now part of the daily lives of millions of Indonesian consumers, and at Tokopedia, we are always looking at new ways to make this online experience even better and more convenient. This is exactly why we launched ‘PLUS by GoTo’ last week, a new subscription program that offers an array of benefits, promotions, and discounts at an affordable monthly fee.

The inspiration behind PLUS

How did PLUS come about? There were two major factors behind this launch.

Firstly, we saw a need to enhance the logistics experience for consumers. Indonesia is the world’s largest archipelagic country with more than 6,000 inhabited islands, which means that logistics has traditionally been rather expensive and slow. Hence, the majority of Indonesians usually look for low-cost or free delivery, and many also wait for promotions and combine orders to maximize shipping promotions.

However, in the past couple of years, we have seen a shift in the shopping behavior of Indonesians as more people began turning to e-commerce as a result of the pandemic. These days, more buyers are transacting online regularly, and product availability has also risen exponentially, with millions of merchants having joined the GoTo ecosystem during the pandemic. With more people using e-commerce services, quota based and restrictive free regular shipping may no longer be sufficient for certain households that rely heavily on Tokopedia for their day-to-day needs.

Secondly, as people adopt online experiences, there is a growing willingness to try out non traditional e-commerce like ordering food, tele-consultations with doctors, education, entertainment and more. Online experiences are essentially the new normal for Indonesian consumers, but at the same time, we realized that many may feel overwhelmed by the huge number of service providers in each category. Prior to PLUS, there was no single program that allowed users to get access to the best partners, services, and benefits all under one umbrella.

PLUS by GoTo addresses both of these pain points. Designed to be affordable, packed with value, the subscription package is offered starting at IDR 150,000 for six months during the initial promotion period. A PLUS subscriber can get unlimited fast and free shipping, for any transaction at or above IDR 25,000. They also have access to exclusive benefits across the GoTo ecosystem and from curated GoTo partners for their daily needs. These range from discounts on medicine and teleconsultations with Halodoc, to discounted vouchers to stream the World Cup 2022 on Vidio, unlimited fast and free shipping on grocery purchases via Tokopedia NOW! and more. This is just the start, and we will continue to add more partner benefits to provide the most worry-free and value-rich subscription program for consumers.

The process of launching PLUS

We launched PLUS by GoTo in a record time of just 10 weeks! This was possible only because of the trust between our teams — a key strength that allowed us to move quickly without compromising on quality. To highlight how large the team was, we had ~1000 people in the working group which is more than 3X the number of people involved in any of our previous major product feature releases. We faced numerous challenges, but here are some of the important ones that we solved together working as one GoTo:

1. Ensuring the best experience for customers: We designed the end-to-end purchase experience for the PLUS subscriber to be completely seamless — from the purchase of the subscription, to managing their subscription, and the product purchase journey as a subscriber. For our subscribers, the best selection from the top sellers will show up first in the Tokopedia app, prominently differentiated with a PLUS badge that symbolizes trust and convenience.
2. Building to Scale: To meet the timelines we were working towards, we leveraged existing systems and built only what was necessary, while ensuring it is scalable for evolving future use cases.
3. Delivering on our promises: The delivery promise we provide is a combination of seller processing time, courier partner pick-up cutoffs, availability of premium shipping options on a route and their SLA adherence. We had to factor in all these variables, including how to socialize this to our PLUS sellers, to ensure we offer attractive yet feasible promises on our PLUS products.
4. Exclusive Partner Benefits: We worked with our partners to ensure a wide range of benefits for our subscribers. Once we decided on the benefits, we had to build benefit awareness and seamless usage capability on our platform, as well as optimize the benefit usage process on our partners’ platforms. For example, PLUS subscribers are automatically detected on the Halodoc app, enabling them to receive direct discounts on teleconsultations and medicine.
5. Prioritized Customer Service: To ensure a consistent experience, we are offering subscribers prioritized customer service. We worked with the customer service team and built capabilities to ensure subscriber tickets are prioritized and closed faster, with personalized communications.

Where we are headed next

For now, PLUS by GoTo is available to customers in Java island, Indonesia, but we don’t intend to stop there. Our vision is to make the feature accessible to all Indonesians. We will gradually roll it out to more regions in Indonesia, while expanding the benefits across the GoTo ecosystem and our partners, so that PLUS can provide convenience in every part of a consumer’s life. Stay tuned for more!