Retail News CRM

Category: Research

Retail News Asia is committed to providing both local and global retailers with the latest Research throughout the Asian market. This on a daily base.

  • Here’s a new tissue that could help wipe out deforestation

    Here’s a new tissue that could help wipe out deforestation

    Experts say bamboo offers enormous potential to protect the natural environment and biodiversity as well as mitigate climate change, given its strong root systems to combat soil erosion and capacity to lock up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

    There is a growing array of products made of bamboo in the market today – from bicycles to sunglasses – offering sustainable alternatives to timber and other forest products.

    Early this month, NooTrees, a new brand of sustainable consumer products wholly owned by Singapore-based luxury retail group FJ Benjamin, joined the movement and launched a series of biodegradable bamboo-based wet wipes and tissue paper products to supermarkets.

    The new line targets environmentally-conscious consumers looking for products that do not destroy natural resources while costing the same as traditional options. Tissue paper products are often produced from the virgin pulp of trees grown in timber plantations.

    The problem is that much of the land cleared for these plantations were once forest areas, which are rich in carbon stock and natural habitats for wildlife such as orangutans and tigers.

    NooTrees’s range of bamboo-fibre tissue paper and wet wipes presents a viable solution to the environmental problem of deforestation and also offers a skincare product that is hypo-allergenic, the firm said in a statement.

    The recent haze pollution caused by the burning of peatland and forested areas in Indonesia has increased awareness among Singaporean consumers of the implications of deforestation.   

    However, despite zero-deforestation pledges by pulp and paper companies, some pulpwood suppliers are still linked to illegal burning of plantations. These plantations are putting companies’s supply chain at risk of violating their own commitments – and thus, ending up selling products that could be linked with forest destruction and air pollution.

    Companies’s transparency is also called to question as the traceability of the raw materials is hampered by insufficient data. For example, sometimes nobody knows who or which company owns a patch of land that is burning.

    David Ward, who founded the brand in November last year and is general manager of NooTrees, said that he is confident that the brand will find a following in Singapore who are supportive of companies that truly make a positive impact on people’s lives.

    Experts advocating bamboo as an alternative source to timber and other forest products say the plants have enormous potential to protect the natural environment because of their strong root systems to combat soil erosion. The plant also grows fast and therefore, can lock up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, helping mitigate climate change.

    Ward noted that scientists have been searching for alternative fibres for the tissue paper sector. “Bamboo consistently comes out as the best long-term alternative and best possible future material to match the growing future demands for toilet and tissue paper as the world population increases,” he explained.

    He told Eco-Business that NooTrees only works with bamboo pulp manufacturers that are certified by the Forest Stewardship Council and International Standards Organisation.

    There is continued interest in bamboo, which has now become a booming US$6 billion industry in China, Ward stressed. He added that the plant has a high regeneration rate and the ability to produce five to six times the amount of paper pulp per hectare compared to regular trees.

    NooTrees said its products’s biodegradability compared with conventional polyester-based wet wipes also addresses the issue of waste management. Because they biodegrade within 45 days in a landfill, they do not end up as waste that clogs wastewater pipes and recycling plants.

    “We are starting in Singapore as we want to make a positive impact to the people living here and then elsewhere across the region and the world,” said Ward.

    And yes, NooTrees confirmed that no critically-endangered wildlife, especially pandas, were deprived of their food sources in the making of these tissue products.

    Lees ook:

  • 10 things startups should know before entering Indonesia

    10 things startups should know before entering Indonesia

    Entrepreneurs grinding it out in Jakarta are unlikely to tell you Indonesia is an easy market to win. On the surface, the world’s largest archipelago is attractive to foreign founders. And why not? Indonesia has a lot of problems to be solved, with greenfield opportunities that tend to encompass several links on a given value chain. This wide open nature of the market alone makes it a conducive environment for building full-stack ventures. On top of that, the population is big. So the saying goes, if you can win Indonesia, you may not need to expand regionally.

    Tech firms can grow fast in Indonesia, with a young population embracing the web faster than ever before. Fun fact: each year, Indonesia pops out more babies than the entire population of Singapore. Singaporean startups salivate when thinking about an Indonesian market entrance as it’s undeniably the largest and most important market in Southeast Asia – the final frontier in terms of regional defensibility, some say.

    Indonesia is the next hotspot for investor activity after China, the US, and India. This is due to an economy that’s consumption-driven and a tech market that’s still relatively immature. There are a lot of reasons to take your startup to Indonesia. But alas, Indonesia is as elusive as it is attractive; a mirage for some. While there are many reasons to come here, there’s really only one reason to stay: the opportunity to challenge yourself.

    Local investors and founders are likely to agree – if you can crack Jakarta, you can crack any market. In reality, it’s only for those with true grit.

    In no particular order, here are ten things foreign founders should chew on before stocking up on batik shirts and parachuting into Indonesia.

    Tough geography

    Indonesia is made up of more than 17,000 islands. This means things like logistics and internet penetration rates are major hurdles for any web business.

    Things are changing, however, and startups are quick to adapt. With Indonesia’s three major telcos getting more aggressive with 4G coverage and many locals coming online for the first time on mobile devices, consumers have a healthy thirst to get plugged in – no matter how far they are from the capital or Java island.

    But the situation is still far from perfect. Getting Indonesians online in rural areas is just the first step toward converting them into paying customers. Looking specifically at the ecommerce space, operating in a nation that’s divided by water is a challenge in and of itself when considering timely and reliable delivery.

    Juicy demographics

    Indonesia has a population of more than 250 million. Over 50 percent of people are under the age of 30, making them statistically ripe in terms of understanding and adopting new tech. Additionally, Indonesia’s economy is pillared by people buying stuff. An emerging middle-class has been the focus of many ecommerce firms, both foreign and domestic. Current hot verticals include automotive, real estate, fashion, lifestyle, financial, and on-demand services.

    However, capitalizing on Indonesia’s favorable demographics is easier said than done. Currently, online shopping still accounts for less than 1 percent of the nation’s retail sector. This is small compared to China, where ecommerce makes up roughly 10 percent of all retail transactions (PDF link). Additionally, Indonesia’s demographics are also divided by religion, culture, and socioeconomic standings, which inevitably lead to the need for a variety of different marketing tactics for the same product.

    Weak payments infrastructure

    The majority of the Indonesia’s population has not entered the banking system. Further, less than 5 percent own credit cards. Developed markets, like the US for example, have efficient payments infrastructures that rest on the backbone of the Europay, MasterCard, and Visa (EMV) technology and network.

    Indonesia, on the other hand, is primarily a cash-based economy. Electronic payments solutions are forced to cope with the nation’s unbanked and underbanked. This drives startups to explore creative avenues that involve things like ewallets, alternative payment gateways, and mobile phone credit.

    Fun fact: While broadband usage is at less than 30 percent of the population and the underbanked population is more than 70 percent, mobile penetration is somewhere near 130 percent. This means everyone in Indonesia has a cellphone, sometimes two or three. The phenomenon presents opportunities for savvy founders who want to think creatively in the payments game.

    Two banks run the show

    Bank Mandiri and Bank Central Asia (BCA) are the two major financial institutions in Indonesia. These two banks have only made online payments possible since 2012. If you plan on starting up and getting paid in Indonesia, you will eventually bump into these guys.

    Mandiri and BCA affect everything from the top down. Effectively, the pair acts as a duopoly on Indonesia’s formal finance landscape. This creates bottlenecks and inefficiencies as both corporations are gunning to make superior solutions for the same problems. However, any startup that can cope with this ― or create more elegant solutions for payments and financial inclusion ― will find itself in a strong position in Jakarta.

    Bureaucracy you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy

    It takes one to two days to set up a business in Singapore. In Indonesia, it takes an average of 47 ― and that’s assuming you’ve done the paperwork right. The World Bank and the International Finance Corporation ranks Indonesia in 155th place in the world for ease of starting up a business, citing complex and drawn out processes involved in starting up as the main headaches.

    Businesses must get cleared with the state treasury, the Ministry of Law and Human Rights, and the Ministry of Manpower, as well as complete several other registrations.

    Traditionally, there are enormous tax payments to be made each year. Companies spend around 259 hours of company time each year dealing with taxes. Corporate income tax of 25 percent takes 75 hours to process, and social security contributions and VAT add another 184 hours to the total.

    Depending on your particular business, there is likely a unique set of rules you must follow. Additionally, laws in Indonesia are always changing.

    What language do you speak?

    There are more than 726 languages spoken across Indonesia today. Most of these are regional dialects of the overarching official language, Bahasa Indonesia, though they vary immensely and often incorporate completely different vocabulary. In theory, all startups really need to do is make their product in the universal Indonesian language and it’s all good, right? Wrong.

    In order to truly localize a product, companies need to be able to reach Indonesian consumers in their everyday lives. In practice, deals will sometimes only close when representatives and customers can get on the same page with a dialect. A conversation between a consumer from Aceh and a business in Jakarta is very different than a conversation between two Jakartans. As a foreigner who hasn’t even mastered Bahasa Indonesia, you’ll be put at an even greater disadvantage. Wise founders will find sharp local partners to help them out.

    Social media is a way of life

    Social media is a force that can’t be circumvented in Indonesia. It’s a must. Twitter and Facebook to one degree or another affect everything from entertainment and business to politics and news. The archipelago is one of the top five global users of social media, and political candidates are aware that failing to engage voters via social media could mean a lower tally at the ballot box.

    Indonesia has 72 million active social media accounts, 62 million of which are on mobile. The most popular ones in Indonesia are Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus. Although Indonesia has become the main market for Path, data suggests that Instagram and Pinterest are more popular.

    Indonesians love their malls

    Southeast Asian countries, and Indonesia in particular, have a true affinity for shopping malls. This is perhaps just an inexplicable idiosyncrasy of the region. Jakarta alone has more than 173 malls, which is something nearly unheard of in markets like the US or UK.

    Unlike western cultures, however, Indonesians don’t typically stroll down the sidewalk and pop into a boutique store to try on one-of-a-kind fashion items. Instead, they flock en masse to giant malls where everything is in one secure, air-conditioned location. If tech startups can find ways to make their online products applicable to offline shopping malls in Indonesia, they might have a fighting chance at regional defensibility.

    Regulation is wild

    If you’re planning to incorporate your business in Indonesia, you’ll need to be aware of the legal limitations imposed on foreign-owned companies. Indonesia’s Negative Investment List specifies sectors of the economy in which foreign ownership is limited or even prohibited completely. These limits range anywhere from zero percent to 95 percent ownership allowance. Some of the sectors include advertising and pharmaceuticals. But more relevant to us in the tech space is ecommerce.

    In recent years, the minimum capital requirement to set up a foreign investment limited liability company (also known as PT Penamanan Modal Asing, abbreviated as PT PMA) was INR 10 billion (roughly US$1 million). The amount needs to be part of a company’s official investment plan with a quarter of it paid up front into the company’s Indonesian bank account.

    Most early-stage startups won’t have that kind of cash. Many entrepreneurs looking to target the Indonesian market prefer to incorporate their business in Singapore, where it’s so much quicker, the fees are next to nothing, and the political climate is stable. However, companies that need to be licensed in Indonesia would do well to do their homework extensively before buying a plane ticket.

    The taxi is your office

    If you’re a tech entrepreneur and you plan to move to Jakarta, it might be worth your while to invest in a plug-and-play wifi modem. The reason is that Jakarta has the worst traffic conditions in the world and you may end up stuck in a taxi or an Uber for several hours trying to get across town for your next meeting.

    Instead of stressing out about time you’re wasting, it’s often more practical to just pull out your laptop in the car and catch up on emails on the go. Indonesia’s traffic conditions may also be another factor that plays into the nation’s rapid smartphone and social media adoption.

  • Hackers target online retailers, and not just the big ones

    Hackers target online retailers, and not just the big ones

    Many small and midsized retailers assume hackers won’t bother with them. But criminals have figured out small companies are easier to penetrate, and go after them frequently, warns a security expert.

    In spite of high-profile hacks such as against eBay, many Internet retailers still do not believe that they are at risk or have been a victim of undetected hacks by criminal groups.

    In the 2014 Trustwave Global Security Report, retail was the top industry compromised, making up 35% of the attacks investigated. And 54% of those attacks were against e-commerce sites, where hackers target servers and databases that host card data.

    However, many online retailers still seriously underestimate the [black] market value of the data they possess and handle. Just take a look at Pastebin.com—the simple online text storage and sharing platform is being used by hackers to store stolen information.

    Hackers use Pastebin to prove that they conducted a successful hack. Earlier this year, as part of our security research, we found 311,095 user credentials (login/password pairs) for various services, web sites and e-mails, compromised during the last 12 months. In many cases other personal details, such as credit card numbers, addresses and phone numbers of the victims were also published by the hackers. On average each leak record on Pastebin contained 1,000 user credentials.

    Pastebin is just one illustration of the “dark side” of the Internet, where online retailers can check if web site vulnerabilities have been exploited and if their customers’ data is being targeted. 

    With the rise of the Big Data trend, information collection and analysis is becoming more important for online retailers. With more data comes more opportunity for hackers, who are looking for data/records to sell for profit. A report by Risk Based Security and the Open Security Foundation found that in 2013 there were 2,164 data breach incidents exposing 822 million data records. And 59.8% of reported incidents were the result of hacking, which accounted for 72% of exposed records.

    Cybercriminals are highly skilled technically and are also business people, who know how to make money. A recent CNN article said this: “According to one European intelligence service, there are 20-30 criminal gangs in the former Soviet Union that have hacking skills as good as most nations. There are many other groups with lesser skills. These criminals are nimble and inventive, and there are thriving cybercrime black markets where you can buy the latest hacking tools.”

    A recent Javelin Strategy & Research report found that financial institutions are doing a much better job than retailers when it comes to credit card security. Indeed, there are a number of online marketplaces and forums that solely exist to sell information gained by hackers, for example Rescator.la sells stolen credit and debit card information. In such places, customer databases from online stores are often the most expensive on the black market, because they contain correct, up-to-date and complete customer details, sometimes even with their credit card numbers.

    Completeness is a very important factor for pricing on the black market. One customer record from an online store may generate a penny, while a thousand records can easily generate at least $10, or much more, depending on the records’ quality and completeness. For example spammers prefer to purchase e-mails from Internet retailers, simply because they will get a higher click-through rate, generating more revenue, as they can send targeted spam (by country, age, wealth, area of interests, etc.)

    Hackers are also interested in the valuable information on shoppers’ computers, so e-commerce web sites are often infected with malware (an exploit pack targeting and exploiting vulnerabilities in Adobe products or popular browsers). Such attacks often remain unnoticed as they are conducted overnight or at weekends when security team is away. Experienced hackers can go undetected over a long period. For example, French computer hardware retailer LaCie disclosed in April 2014 that its web site had been breached by a malware attack that went undetected for a year. Following the breach, the retailer recommended that buyers check their credit card statements for any fraudulent charges, and keep an eye on their credit reports in case of identity theft.

    The big-name breaches that hit headlines leave many small and midsized e-business owners believing that they will not be attacked, assuming their customer databases are not big enough. This assumption is wrong because in the majority of cases hackers are not looking for customers and data from a specific web shop, they are just looking for commercially exploitable data. The more, the better. It’s much easier, faster and cheaper to hack 50 small e-boutiques than hacking one big one. Moreover, the outcome in terms of number of stolen customer records will be almost the same, probably even bigger. Imagine how much it costs to compromise Amazon.

    Large e-commerce retailers also have much more administrative, financial and legal resources to organize forensics and post-incident investigation, so many hackers try to avoid them. Instead, they often target small retailers that have no capability to fight back.

    As only a small number of Black Hats have the necessary skills, time and resources to launch attacks against the biggest players in the e-commerce industry, hackers prefer to compromise a dozen small and medium online shops per day and get their money on the “every little bit helps” principle. Hacker groups use robots, hidden behind proxies, to crawl the Web in the 24/7/365 mode. They look for known vulnerabilities, outdated versions of web application software or just brute force default or weak passwords. One would be surprised how much information can be just found in Google. And if you have a crawling farm you can compromise thousands of web sites per hour.

    Against this hacker onslaught, online retailers of all sizes need to employ an arsenal that is as flexible and up to date as the hackers’ tools. Retailers need to ensure that their hosting providers or data centers have stringent security procedures, that content management systems are up to date, third-party code is checked thoroughly before use and web sites are regularly audited for weaknesses through a combination of vulnerability scanning and penetration testing.

    Lees ook:

    Lees ook:

  • Nearly 40 percent of Asian food retailers unaware of logistics costs

    Nearly 40 percent of Asian food retailers unaware of logistics costs

    More than 1 in 4 food retailers in some of Asia’s fastest-growing economies expect to grow by 10 percent or more this year, according to research commissioned by DHL Supply Chain, the global market leader for contract logistics solutions.

    Based on interviews with more than 300 industry decision-makers in India, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, Hungry for Growth: Logistics Trends in Asia’s High-Growth Food Retail Markets also found that the majority of food retailers – more than 6 in 10 – predict significant growth of 6 percent or more this year as a result of expanding populations and rising income levels.

    DHL_Supply-Chain_Micrographic_04-03

    However, the report also found that up to 38 percent of those surveyed were unaware of their total logistics costs, while 37 percent lacked any KPIs or formal measurements for their supply chain performance – potentially impacting their ability to keep shelves stocked and orders filled as demand and competitive factors grow increasingly complex.

    “Rapid increases in purchasing power, coupled with surges in demand driven by population growth, will yield obvious expansionary benefits to food retailers,” said Dean Eichorn, Vice President – Retail, DHL Supply Chain Asia Pacific. “However, any food retailer’s success is ultimately dependent on the agility of their supply chains when faced with demand volatility, seasonal fluctuations, and other complex market factors. Asia’s food retail industry looks set to undergo significant growth in the next year, and only with greater understanding and control of their logistics operations will companies be able to take advantage of new opportunities.”

    The research found that food retailers are increasingly at risk from unpredictability on both demand and supply sides of their operations. In the four countries surveyed, late supplier deliveries were most commonly cited as food retailers’ top concern, while 36 percent admitted that demand volatility had a major impact on their businesses. Issues around supply chain performance and costs varied around the region: fuel, labor, and imbalances between supply and demand ranked amongst retailers’ top cost issues.

    “Many of these concerns are amplified because a large number of food retailers don’t have visibility of their logistics operations, let alone the resources or subject expertise to improve and optimize them,” said Eichorn. “Food retailers need reliable, agile supply lines if they’re to focus on their core competencies and compete. At DHL, we believe this agility only comes from being able to manage the supply chain as an end-to-end process across transport, warehousing, and value-added services in a way that’s rapidly scalable without creating extra complexity.”

    The research also found that more than 60 percent of food retailers have not outsourced any aspects of their supply chains, suggesting that retailers who actively adopt third-party logistics solutions stand to gain significant “first-mover advantages” against their competition. Of those surveyed, 44 percent believe inventory optimization technologies would be beneficial to their overall performance, while 38 percent see advanced transport management services, like “track and trace”, as helping them improve reliability in meeting demand.

    DHL_Supply-Chain_Micrographic_04-04

    “Asia’s food retailers recognize the need to innovate and change, but the technologies and process transformations required to do so aren’t their domain of expertise – and nor should they be,” said Eichorn. “The key to growth and expansion in Asia’s food retail industry, and those of other developing regions where we’re seeing similar trends, will be how effectively operators can take advantage of third-party expertise and managed solutions in everything from technology to end-to-end supply chain management. For food retailers looking to leapfrog their competition and stay on top of growth’s complexity, the time to embrace advanced supply management principles is now.”

    About the Research:

    Commissioned by DHL Supply Chain and conducted by Redshift Research, the Hungry for Growth report draws on responses collected between December 2014 and April 2015 from more than 300 food retail professionals in India, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. The report defines “food retail” as referring to retailers who sell food to consumers primarily for off-premise consumption, including (but not limited to): grocery stores, convenience stores, hypermarkets, supermarkets, and specialist stores like butcheries and bakeries.

    The full report can be downloaded from https://www.dhl.com/hungryforgrowth.