Challenge

Minelab historically operated as a brick-and-mortar business, with dealers purchasing in person, directly from Minelab locations. After establishing a foothold in more than 150 countries around the world, the company set its sights on expanding to Southeast Asia. In an effort to overcome supply chain inefficiencies and country-to-country business development gaps, Minelab appointed Romar Enterprise Sdn Bhd, a Malaysian company, as its Southeast Asian distributor to develop the business in ten new countries. Indonesia, among the top three fastest-growing e-commerce markets in the world, presented a key opportunity in the company’s expansion strategy and was selected as a starting point.

Breaking into a country as large and diverse as Indonesia offered the promise of incredible growth alongside numerous challenges. Chief among them were:

• Minelab did not have – and had never had – a website with e-commerce functionality in Asia.
  
• At the time, end customers in Indonesia generally preferred making payments through mobile wallets or cash on delivery (COD), neither of which was practical for big-ticket, cross-border purchases.
  
• Breaking into a new market would require Minelab to raise awareness of both its brand and the metal detecting category and hobbyist lifestyle.
  

It soon became clear that an e-commerce strategy was going to be a critical component of Minelab’s continued international expansion and that accepting credit and debit card payments as a complement to preferred local payment methods would open the door to secure and successful high-ticket, cross-border transactions.

Solution

Romar Enterprise Sdn Bhd worked with Sweetmag, a digital commerce agency, to help it capitalise on Indonesia’s growing e-commerce market and develop Minelab’s first website with e-commerce functionality.

Because Minelab needed a secure and compliant way to receive cross-border payments from Indonesia, Sweetmag integrated Stripe into Minelab’s Indonesian website through Stripe Connector for Adobe Commerce. Stripe’s detailed Dashboard allowed for a smooth testing and installation process, keeping the project within its projected timeline and budget and enabling Minelab to accept local Indonesian payment methods along with credit and debit cards.

Results

Sweetmag was able to have Minelab’s Indonesian e-commerce site built, installed with Stripe Connector for Adobe Commerce, tested, and live in less than one month.

Now, with an e-commerce presence, Minelab is able to sell to end users both directly and through dealers throughout Indonesia, allowing both dealers and end users in Indonesia to pay for orders through the website via credit and debit cards. In fact, nearly half of Minelab’s payments from dealers are now made with credit and debit cards, speeding up and eliminating friction from the purchase process. In addition to accepting payments in Indonesia, Minelab can also create Stripe Payment Links for dealers in other markets in Southeast Asia and beyond, such as Pakistan, Hong Kong, Bangladesh, and Nepal.

Minelab has also adjusted its business model, establishing a warehouse in Jakarta to push products out to local dealers within a quicker time frame. Minelab’s dealers are able to keep less inventory, placing orders daily rather than every other month. The convenience and speed of ordering and paying has helped accelerate Minelab’s business in the region. Since launching in Indonesia, Minelab’s Indonesian business has tripled. Now, Romar Enterprise Sdn Bhd and Minelab are poised to expand into other Southeast Asian markets and are exploring new opportunities for growth, such as marketplaces.

About Sweetmag

Established in 2008, Sweetmag is a digital commerce and web design agency headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Sweetmag provides Adobe Commerce, Shopify, and system integration services to clients worldwide.