Indonesian E-commerce and Shipping Intricacies

“Erase the COD system to save couriers!”

“The COD system applied in the marketplace should be reconsidered to ease the burden it puts against couriers. Couriers have no direct relations with the marketplace, sellers, and expedition agents. Protect them with all costs”

The actors being discussed here are e-commerce cash-on-delivery (COD) couriers, a trending discourse of ill treatments being done between uninformed customers and a COD courier video which went viral in the 22nd May 2021. Tweets correlating the issue have jumped 5 times in frequency compared to the average amount of tweets about e-commerce shipping issues in the early May 2021. COD system shortcomings became the subject of every public social media discussion after COD customers lost their tempers and attacked a courier with demeaning words. The pandemic poses an incentive for consumers to resort to shop online, thus supporting the significant growth of e-commerce users all around Indonesia. With an 18.1 percent increase in the average total transaction of e-commerce, customers segments of e-commerce widened in scope, now becoming more popular among people above 50 year olds.^[1]

Figure 1: Tweets Trends Overview 1-31st May 2021

Exposed to the wider audience by @AREAJULID with 37.3k likes and more than 15k retweets in less than a week, the “boomer discourse” that has been prevailing for the past year reached its peak. Initiated by the Gen Z and Millennials in reviewing how the age group are comparatively less informed about online shopping platforms, many have discouraged boomers from shopping online. With thousands of tweets jumping in this trend, about 90% of the tweets side with the courier, most even go to the extent of blaming the customer for its aggressive reaction to the courier for opening up the package ordered from an e-commerce platform without paying it beforehand and returning it with the seal broken. Netizens broke into anger after witnessing the unfair treatment by both the customer and the daughter of the customer who attempted to record the courier explaining how the COD system works before throwing the package back to the courier. While most reactions of netizens are expressing emotions and sympathy, some attempted to advise the boomer customer group and the youth relatives of any boomer age group to proactively educate people who are less informed about e-commerce shipping mechanisms.

From 903 tweets samples correlating with couriers and boomers analysed from its sentimental aspect from 1st May 2021 to 31st May 2021, 661 of them are negative tweets dominated by twitter users expressing how boomers should not use any COD system. We are using several keywords to scrape data as follows:

((Kurir OR “kurir Shopee” OR JNE OR #savekurir OR COD OR “kurir COD” OR “paket COD” OR “gaji kurir” OR “customer kurir” OR “kurir Shopee Express” OR “treatment kurir” OR “gak usah COD” OR “Blok Goblok” OR “Blok Goblok kurir” OR COD) AND (edukasi OR boomer OR boomers OR “sistem pembayaran”)) OR (“ibu baju kuning” AND (kurir OR (kurir minim perlindungan hukum) OR (beban untuk kurir) OR (courier not paid enough) OR (COD courier) OR (kurir boomer) OR (tanggung jawab kurir) OR (transaksi COD kurir) OR (urusan pembeli dan seller) OR (kurir Tokped) OR (Si Oren kurir)))

Though there are about 101 tweets of neutral responses, it consists of suggestions for the youths to educate parents and the elderly to use the COD system correctly. The remaining 141 of positive responses look further to the prospect of education and awareness in the proper use of the COD system that may potentially increase efficiency of sales.

Figure 2: Sentiment Analysis Ratio

One of the most popular tweets came from @setiawandenny90, which elaborated the COD system mechanism while legitimizing that people’s concern to access the online shop is fraud. However, he continued that it cannot be justified that the package is opened before paying the package as the courier will be the one to take responsibility for the return of goods where refund is not possible. Though most netizens show instant reaction to the affiliated actors, some others pay more attention to the fault of the system.

Though e-commerce sites such as Lazada and Shoppee apply some terms and conditions to prevent customers from similar shortcomings, this problem continues to prevail. Many argue that the terms and conditions in the COD system agreed by the customers are not enough to ensure that customers are well informed about the mechanism of the system. This is because most people are agreeing to such a notification without actually reading it while others commonly use their relative’s e-commerce account to do transactions.

After two days of constant bullying by the Netizens, the customer affiliate made a clarification video expressing regret and plea to stop terrorizing them in social media. This is evidence that the trend of shipping intricacies discourse reflects how the vast majority of Indonesian Netizens show support for the couriers and condemn customers who are uninformed while putting the courier’s sustainability at stake.

@setiawandenny90 explainig that the COD system have SOP which states that packaged goods need to be paid prior to opening the seal. Should there be any concern, package could be returned. He also stated that if customers are afraid of facing fraud, customers should consider choosing traditional market rather than online shops URL: <https://twitter.com/setiawandenny90/status/1393752616648069126?s=20>

Since then, several more cases of couriers being ill treated surfaced to popular discourse in Twitter, indicating more awareness of Netizens to e-commerce shipping issues. More influencers are encouraging the youths to educate their older relatives to prevent similar shortcomings from happening. Some even went to the extent of advocating pay raise for couriers as they have to deal with bad customer service experience, which is not supposed to be their responsibility. Such awareness has brought more vocal audiences to stand up against the unjust system of the e-commerce shipping intricacies particularly the COD system. Some customers have started to be more mindful of the e-commerce platform they are using to make sure they support ethical treatment of workers.

Author: Nabila Talitha
Reviewer and Editor: Josia Paska Darmawan
Data processing: Nadia Elaesiana

^[1] Hidayat, A., 2021. Selama Pandemi, Transaksi E-commerce Naik 18,1 persen. [online] Tempo. Available at: <https://bisnis.tempo.co/read/1405787/selama-pandemi-transaksi-e-commerce-naik-181-persen> [Accessed 1 August 2021].