Landscaping Mobile Social Media and Payments in Indonesia

This paper studies the triple intersection of smartphones, social network sites, and purchasing and selling online in Indonesia. Research was conducted through a series of interviews, focus groups, and observation of everyday practices to understand a range of issues such as consumption, payment, and internet sociality in the medium of online commerce. Key findings include:

• Mobile devices, with the BlackBerry being the dominant device in Indonesia, have displaced desktop computers for commerce, but laptops remain important;
• Indonesians tend to follow specific pathways into electronic commerce that can move across platforms and be identity-specific;
• Multiple device ownership is nearly universal in Indonesia and this is linked to particular practices of online consumerism and payment;
• Providers and websites are extremely important to online shopping and payment, and are the primary factor driving multiple device ownership;
• Experiences in buying online often lead to forms of online selling, with a wide range of formality and linkage to social networks;
• Risk is an ever-present aspect of online buying, but is often treated as a ‘risk of shopping via the internet and addressed through various social and technological strategies.