Stephanie Suryani’s Urbanlife Glams Up a Saturated Business
Jakarta. Stephanie Suryani of Urbanlife reveals how her retail stores successfully sell premium, third-party gadget accessories in a market riddled with generic types.
There’s a famous saying that claims the United States created Facebook, South Korea developed Line, China created gadgets, and Indonesia made time to use all of those gadgets and applications. This might sound cheeky, but numbers don’t lie.
The AdReaction study, published by Millward Brown’s global media research firm last June, states that Indonesians spend more time on their gadget screens — especially smartphones — than anyone else in the world. After all, Indonesia is the social media capital of the world.
This world-record screen time is matched by Indonesia’s appetite for more and more gadgets. Research company eMarketer reports that by 2018 Indonesia will have 100 million smartphone users, making it the world’s fourth largest smartphone market in the world after China, the United States and India.
For a long time, brand awareness of the Indonesian market was concentrated on the gadgets itself, and not the accessories. There was an ocean of third-party gadget accessories with no emphasis on brand value; simply on function. A visit to any mid-level shopping mall in Jakarta that focused on electronics, such as the International Trade Centers (ITC) at Mangga Dua, North Jakarta, and Kuningan, South Jakarta, would see endless varieties of China-made phone casings and power banks.
Quality and durability might be questionable as the objective was simply low price. You could guarantee that a power bank bought in one of these places boasting power capacity of 5000mAH was most likely not what it claimed to be.
Among the millions of active gadget users in Indonesia is Stephanie Suryani, a young entrepreneur from Jakarta who saw an opportunity in providing this big market with upscale gadget accessories with an emphasis on quality. So, in 2013 she founded the Urbanlife retail store.
“People might say that ‘it’s just accessories, and they are widely available in cheaper forms in the many electronic shopping malls,’ ” Stephanie said. “But we have identified a need from customers who are willing to spend on premium-quality third-party accessories.”
While gadget stores in middle-and-up shopping malls sell third-party accessories as a supplementary business line to support their main focus of selling laptops and/or mobile phones, Urbanlife focuses solely on accessories. The stores are designed to be hip, and do a good job addressing millennials with a distinct taste in audio and who seek high-quality accessories that match their prized gadgets.
“We are now in 10 shopping malls all across Jakarta and expanding to Bali,” said Stephanie. “When we started we served more iPhone users, but now we see that Android phones, particularly Samsung, are on the rise.”
Introducing, reinforcing cult brands
Urbanlife has four main product categories: gadget peripherals such as phone covers, audio devices such as earphones or multimedia speakers, travel accessories such as bags and lifestyle accessories such as watches.
The company was excited by the idea of bringing in Google Glass until the project was scrapped by the IT major. The concept of the store is “experiential,” allowing customers to test out the products in-store.
“Audio is a very personal experience, and each brand has its unique character profile,” Stephanie said. “In Urbanlife we have various types of headphones and speakers for our customers to try out.”
Urbanlife serves two types of customers: those who recognize and are loyal to a particular brand, and those who are not familiar with brand names but come into the store, experience the product and like the design and quality.
One brand found in Urbanlife is Marshall, which may not be a household nam but resonates with those with an infatuation for music. Anyone with some exposure to the music industry will know that the brand stands for quality amplifiers.
Urbanlife also sells the Swedish-based brand’s headphones.
“Some of our customers are so knowledgeable and loyal to a particular brand that they are already asking for not-yet available products, but which are already on our order list,” Stephanie explained. “Another appealing factor is that we offer an official global warranty, and one-to-one replacement.”
Although the strong point of the stores is experiential service, Urbanlife also understands the need for an online presence, a project currently in development.
Urbanlife’s next move is into wearables, such as smartwatches.
Stephanie is also making a serious effort in not only selling drones, but investing in events held by drone communities. Urbanlife’s line of four-rotor helicopters can be used for various purposes, including aerial photography.
Also on the radar are multimedia speakers made by high-end home-system brands, such as Bang and Olufsen and Cambridge Audio.
“Some people say it’s a niche market, but for us it’s a growing one,” Stephanie said. “We see room to open up 10 more stores this year, including in other cities outside of Jakarta such as Yogyakarta and Medan [North Sumatra].”
GlobeAsia
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