Launched in 2019, KESAN (Kedaulatan Santri) is a premier Muslim lifestyle app. Kesan is carefully designed to serve Indonesian santri (Islamic students) and general Muslims with various features such as prayer reminders, Qibla finder, digital Al-Qur’an, and many more. The app has been downloaded more than 400,000 times on Google Play Store and Apple App Store.
In 2020, KESAN added a marketplace feature in its platform, called U-Mart. KESAN had integrated with Xendit to support its marketplace feature. We spoke with their Chief Commercial Officer, Ferad Ananda Irwan to learn more about the company and how the partnership with Xendit helps KESAN grow their business.
“We received advice from KH Ma’ruf Amin to equip santri with entrepreneurial skills. We answered by creating U-Mart, our very own marketplace platform.”
The launch was timely, as at the time, COVID-19 pandemic hits and there’s a huge demand for digital infrastructure to help small-medium businesses to go online. The app has on-boarded various santripreneurs’ businesses ranging from hijab sellers to books.
U-Mart’s launch was welcomed with high demands for various products in the marketplace from across the country, and honey is one of the in-demand products. Aside from honey, basic Pesantren (Islamic boarding schools) essentials such as religious books, baju koko (men’s Islamic outfits), and peci (prayer caps) were the highly demanded products that hit the correct target audience of KESAN.
Overcoming challenges in running a marketplace
As Kesan’s marketplace aims to serve customers across Indonesia, the need to accept a variety of payment methods reliably becomes of the utmost importance.
Kesan decided to integrate with a payment gateway in order to enable a number of payment channels. Upon consulting with the developers team, KESAN chose to integrate with Xendit due to the ease of integration and the support level that Xendit’s team provides.
“Thanks to Xendit, we can now enable Virtual Account from multiple banks, various e-Wallet channels, and retail outlet payments in our marketplace.”
In addition to the money-in services, Kesan also utilized Xendit’s money-out features to automate payouts to merchants in Kesan’s marketplace platform.
Continuous improvement to better serve users’ needs
This year, Kesan aims to increase its app downloads and active users by 200% year on year.
“With new features expected to launch later this year and a continued partnership with Xendit, the growth target is certainly achievable.”
