A-What-Do-I-Know: The 2014 Insight

(Disclaimer: The title reads not as a ‘hey-these-are-the-things-I-know’ but more of a “hey-what-do-I-know?” notion. Embarking an academic path in the creative area may not be everybody’s choice, because, hey why would you want to have boundaries of the things you can or cannot do; but then it was a choice I was lucky to take. Of course, the more I learn, the more I felt incapable. This is my attempt to capture what I found in the journey, a reflective essay may be just what I need. Why am I sharing this? Well, perhaps half of me is selfishly trying to show the world what I have done, while the other half felt that I need to write this to keep myself going – another selfish act, of course, but come on. The good news is that another tiny part in the corner of my head wishes that someone else could bump to this piece and embark to their own journey that supports the idea of this direction, or perhaps to convince me to walk to a different direction – I’m open to that. So, I don’t know what I’d be hoping for here, but if you read this at all, thanks.)

I was doing a school assignments for a local startup brand of leather bags and products when I realised that I couldn’t get the data I needed to support my business proposals. Yes, the British Library had been helpful, most of the data came from research studies that would have been too costly for me to get my hands on, yet most study I found was just still too broad for the specific area I wanted to propose. I couldn’t find a consumer behaviour study that specified on independent local brands on fashion and lifestyle products and the market behaviour towards it, perhaps the market was too small for a market research company to invest their resources in; thus in the name of startups the only source of research comes from your own.

This survey was made by my sporadic way of thinking. I put questions of the things I needed to know, and had meant it as a qualitative research rather than a quantitative one – I was not well-equiped with the latter one. The percentage of responds supporting an act of behaviour would then be my source of data to support my business proposals, why I do the thing I do. A list of questions were made and with the magic of social media was spread amongst friends and friends of friends to help identify consumers’ habit in in fashion and lifestyle product, this includes: outfits, bags, shoes, accessories, home and living objects (home décor, furniture, etc), and everyday objects. Respondents were generic, I started from friends of the age group I wanted to target my proposed product for – to see their shopping and social media pattern – and went on from there. At the end of the research period, I ended up with this:

• The survey’s respond was gathered among 103 respondents, 80% of them are lives and conduct their daily activities in the Greater Jakarta Area. The predominant age group is 20-30 years old. Thirty six percent of the population earns at least e8 million per month, another 21 % receives an income range of 5-8 million rupiahs.
• Seventy two percent of the respondents are female.
• Eighty percent of the respondents are not married.
• Thirty five percent has an income of Rp. 8 million, and a similar 21 and 23%
• Thirty nine percent got online around 1-5 hours per week, followed by 28 % of 6-10 hours per week, and a 16% of more than 16 hours per week group.
• Path and Facebook are still the most preferred social media platform.
• They spend most of their leisure time to watch movie, hang out with their friends and families, read, and listen/ play music.

Almost all of my respondent have heard and possess fashion/ lifestyle products from creative-local brands. From this subcategory, products of clothing,  bags, and shoes are amongst the top three items they own from local fashion/ lifestyle. This is not surprising,  fashion is indeed the largest subsector in the creative industry category. It has the highest economic contribution (I hope I’m using this term correctly) based on the 2002- 2010 BPS and Kemenparekraf data. It is the big pond of the creative industry in Indonesia.

In the past one year, 83% of my respondent had purchased outfit  from local brands. The numbers drop as only a little more than 50% for purchase of bags, shoes, and accessories products. Forty five percents own home and living object and 17% own every day utilities objects.

They had made 1-2 purchases within six months, and the biggest group of respondents spend less than 500,000 Rupiah for each purchase. Most respondents portion 0-10% of their income to purchase fashion and lifestyle product from, the second biggest group is those who allocate 11-20% of their monthly income for fashion and lifestyle products.

Respondents claim to based their purchase decision on: (1) material, quality, and craftsmanship of the product, (2) price, (3) peers recommendation, (4) made locally, (5) brand popularity, (6) brand familiarity, and (7) brand values. They collect references to decide on a purchase by conducting their own plans and seeking advice and recommendation; peers’ words of mouth and online based information are taking the lead as a go-to source. Reviews in traditional media like TV, radio, and magazines are losing its power. Peers, official website, social media, and blogs review were more reliable for them compared to recommendation endorsed by public figures.

As I got to the degree of confidence that respondents had expressed in getting reliable informations, I noticed how this behaviour might have changed to a different end. Instagram is filled with public personalities who made a living from endorsing products, the way Twitter was also used for that years back. I personally believe that use of endorsement of public figures has gained its significance again. In the spectrum of making purchase, the situation has obviously shifted. Last year, when asked which point of sales they would prefer when making a product purchase, many preferred making a visit to stores, outlets, or pop-up bazaars as their ultimate channel of purchase; online retailers like Zalora were less preferable. However, in the past six months, it seems that online retailers have gained popularity and trust that a wave of online based promotion and sales have dominated s local products are creating sales. I’m thinking of how a follow up research would provide and interesting shift in the trends.

If you are indeed interested with the findings or know any works that may be related to this, I’d love to hear from you. I’m nowhere in focusing myself in conducting academic based research, but I’ve learnt that we haven’t utilise our knowledge about our own market to the fullest, so in tribute to that, I might be dwelling in this issue every now and then. (A follow-up research sometime at the end of the year or early next year, perhaps?)