Warung Pintar: In Competition with Modern Retailers

You don’t need much. A piece of land of 3 by 3 meters is enough to build  a Warung Pintar (smart kiosk). This kiosk usually sells necessities such as instant noodles, bottled drinks, detergents, and others. But different from ordinary grocery stalls, this smart kiosk is equipped with  scanners, dispensers, refrigerators, Unlimited WiFi, CCTV, charging stations for buyers' electricity needs, slates which contain applications for goods inventory, sales and accounting figures sales of ticket, phone credits and electricity tokens.

“I get everything for free," said Muiz, partner of Warung Pintar Damai Indah I, Pesanggrahan, South Jakarta, early last October.

The equipment lent to the partners is actually worth of Rp. 30 million. In addition to obtaining complete facilities  and goods as capital, partners also receive training support to maximize the stall business. Requirements for membership are quite easy to meet. Prospective partners must have clear land ownership - either rented or private property -, the area has to be close to the highway so that the suppliers’ vehicles can pass by, with a minimum distance of 150 meters from the nearest smart kiosk.

Warung Pintar itself is a start up in the form of a kiosk equipped with technology to support the management of its business. Founded by young people across the digital business such as Agung Bezharie (former Investment Associate East Ventures), Harya Putra (former Expansion Head EV Hive), and Sofian Hadiwijaya (former VP of Business Intelligence GO-JEK), Warung Pintar attracts a number of traditional grocery business and encourage them to transform into technology-based kiosks, using  two pillars of technology, namely Internet of Thing and Big Data Analytics.



The Internet of Thing is a concept that aims to expand the benefits arising from continuous internet connection. IoT is used to facilitate buying and selling transactions at Warung Pintar. Whereas Big Data Analytics is used to develop kiosks so that turnover increases and so is revenue.

According to the Social Impact Project Manager of Warung Pintar, Jiwo Damar Anarkie, this social business emerged from the success of the founder when he saw that the traditional grocery stores do not seem to be competing with modern retailers.  Traditional kiosks are often unable to compete because goods are obtained at high prices and sold at even higher prices, they are lacking in terms of financial management skills, and their shop facilities are limited.

“Warung Pintar helps improve the tracing of incoming and outgoing foods by use of computers, thus making it easy to manage finances, and as the result prices become more competitive, because we have cooperated directly with producers of goods and we can sell at a price 10-30 percent cheaper than that in ordinary shops or even minimarkets," Jiwo said.

In addition to providing equipment and facilities for the kiosk, and trainings for kiosk managers, Warung Pintar also  provide problem solving support for partners who are facing problems. Each facilitator must go around helping around 20 fostered partners. For example related to goods that do not sell well, or lack of buyers. Warung Pintar gives advice to its partners to focus on products that buyers are interested in. Partners are also allowed to develop their kiosk according to their respective creativity.

"The plan is that I will make a cafe that sells coffee, toast, grilled sausages, because there are many people at night," Muiz said.

He is also ready to sell snacks from home production or from other smart kiosk. In addition to getting cheaper selling items, partners can also get raw materials such as eggs and flour through the Warung Pintar Distribution Center.

Community Economy to Address Inequality

Warung Pintar attended the Idea and Innovation Market  at Indonesia Development Forum 2018 . At the forum, the Social Impact Project Manager of Warung Pintar, Jiwo Damar Anarkie said that they met with the National Development Planning Agency to convey the idea of ​​overcoming the income gap by strengthening community grocery kiosks. Warung Pintar also expressed opinions and received inputs from Bukalapak CEO Achmad Zaky when they met at IDF 2018 some time ago.

"We also talked with other start-ups how to develop and be accepted throughout Indonesia," said Jiwo.

To date, Warung Pintar has had many as 600 partner kiosks although they only started in August last year. The number of people joining has increased to 20,000 people, exceeding the target in 2018 which was set only at 1,000.

Warung Pintar is currently still limited to Jakarta and Tangerang areas. This November the partnership will be expanded to cover alsoDepok, Bekasi and Bogor regions. Jiwo did not close the opportunity for the regional government to help their people to open this business. He mentioned that there had been a conversation with Banyuwangi Regent in East Java to develop smart kiosks there.

 Warung Pintar is considered to be the right solution to overcome poverty and unemployment. Based on an internal survey of the smart kiosk, 87 percent of potential partners who joined had income below Rp. 5 million. After joining, they get an income increase of 90 percent on average. Previously, the profile of 80 percent shopkeepers was odd jobs or unemployed. Sales turnover per day reaches Rp. 300,000-Rp. 500,000 on average.

"But there are also kiosks with turnover up to Rp 6 million-9 million per day on average, like the smart kiosks on Jalan Prof. DR. Satrio, Setia Budi, in South Jakarta, "said Jiwo.

The steps taken by Warung Pintar are actually empowerment of people's economy through the use of digital technology. Warung Pintar continues to encourage networking among partners to share knowledge and information and strengthen each other because each shop has different problems.

"When solving problems together more solutions are available," said Muiz, coordinator of the Warung Pintar partners in South Jakarta area.

Like ants who cannot live alone, mutual cooperation will work better to improve our welfare. **