A Boost for Local Sellers? Indonesian Government Pushes to Reduce Platform Fee Burden for Small Businesses

【Ebrun Original】On June 17th, according to foreign media reports, the Indonesian government announced that it is formulating a regulatory rule for e-commerce platforms, aiming to provide protection for micro and small enterprises. A core proposal is to require e-commerce platforms to offer a 50% discount on platform service fees to relevant merchants, helping them cope with rising operational costs.

Indonesian Minister of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises, Maman Abdurrahman, stated in Jakarta that this issue was raised against the backdrop of multiple online trading platforms recently increasing their fee standards, with many small enterprises finding these fees to have become a heavy burden.

The ministry has received a large amount of feedback from merchants, reflecting continuous increases in various platform management fees, promotion fees, and other charges, leading to rising operational costs for MSMEs. In response, the government is formulating a regulatory provision regarding the protection of MSMEs on digital platforms, with the goal of creating a fairer business environment and enhancing the market competitiveness of MSMEs.

This regulation is not intended to interfere with e-commerce platforms' rights to set fee standards or pricing systems; its core purpose is to provide support and protection for MSMEs operating within Indonesia's digital economy ecosystem.

As an important part of this proposal, the government is calling on major e-commerce platforms to offer a 50% service fee reduction to micro and small enterprises. This measure will help alleviate the burden of various fees faced by merchants on digital platforms, thereby relieving operational pressure.

In addition to service fee concessions, the Indonesian Ministry of Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises also hopes to enhance business certainty for merchants through a contractual mechanism. According to the proposal, if an e-commerce platform plans to adjust its fee standards, it must notify merchants at least three months in advance.

When explaining the policy rationale, relevant authorities pointed out that e-commerce platforms and MSMEs are not in a competitive relationship but are interdependent partners developing together; both are essential components of the digital economy ecosystem:

“If e-commerce platforms fall, MSMEs will inevitably be affected; conversely, if MSMEs fall, platforms will also be impacted. This ecosystem must remain fair and balanced.”

The government is currently coordinating with relevant ministries and agencies to ensure that future policies support the long-term sustainable development of millions of MSMEs conducting business through digital platforms.

It is reported that in recent years, fee standards on mainstream Southeast Asian e-commerce platforms have been continuously rising.

Taking Shopee as an example, among its Asian sites, when calculating the base product commission and various standing miscellaneous fees, excluding shipping costs, advertising investment fees, and temporary promotional activity fees, the minimum comprehensive commission rate that sellers need to pay has reached 18.5%, with the maximum potentially reaching 39.14%.

On TikTok Shop, sellers typically need to bear commissions, transaction fees, infrastructure fees, and e-commerce growth service fees, among other charges. When combined with super shipping coupon campaigns and various promotional value-added service packages, the comprehensive commission rate also generally exceeds 25%.

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