pines through a joint venture with SM Investments. Despite inflation and rising fuel costs, the company has managed to maintain positive growth, now commanding roughly 40 per cent of Indonesia’s retail share. It has quietly become one of Southeast Asia’s most influential retailers.  According to Ryan Alfons Kaloh, the company’s marketing director and also CEO of Global Loyalty Indonesia (Alfagift), Alfamart is not a convenience store in the traditional sense. “We’re a new type of market focused on grocery shopping, which is not ready-to-eat or ready-to-drink items, but groceries,” Kaloh shared at the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) Big Show Asia Pacific in Singapore last week.  The Alfagift ecosystem: Where data meets distribution To understand Alfamart is to understand the nuance of Southeast Asian geography and consumer behaviour.  “Success in Jakarta doesn’t guarantee success in Surabaya,” Kaloh said, adding even within one city, behaviour can differ block to block. This heterogeneity makes large-format hypermarkets less agile, especially in emerging economies with inconsistent transportation and digital connectivity. While Western audiences might conflate the brand with 7-Eleven or Lawson, Alfamart doesn’t chase the high-margin, low-loyalty model of urban grab-and-go. Instead, it aims to be a digitally integrated, hyperlocal lifeline for middle-class shoppers managing lean budgets and long lists. The digital heartbeat of this infrastructure is Alfagift, the company’s loyalty app-turned-platform that has gone far beyond replacing physical member cards. What started in 2016 as a basic CRM tool is now a full-fledged omnichannel commerce engine. With more than 100,000 online transactions per day, Alfagift not only personalises offers but also drives the entire online-offline convergence strategy. “We analyse the data through our system to understand their online and offline shopping habits, allowing us to provide the best, most relevant offers without creating competition between online and offline channels,” Kaloh said. Thousands of underperforming stores have been turned into micro-distribution hubs. The company has also launched dark stores to further streamline low-cost fulfillment, reaching new demographics with a broader range of SKUs.  “We implemented these because we realised that while it’s difficult to grow faster as a business, we need to set up low-cost operations,” Kaloh said. “Currently, close to 8 per cent of our sales are contributed by Alfagift, which helps us better understand shoppers through data, provide personalised shopping lists, and offer more relevant products.” The hidden engine: Data and membership  A critical inflection point came in 2016, when Alfamart began pouring millions of dollars into its customer relationship management (CRM) systems. The company transformed its membership program into a data engine now encompassing more than 22 million members and generating 60 per cent of transactions. “Alfamart serves not just as a grocery store but also as a payment point where people can pay installments, top up utilities, add money to digital wallets, and use digital banking services,” Kaloh said. “This creates an additional 1.5 to 2 million transactions per day, separate from our merchandise sales.”  In 2019, Alfamart acquired Global Loyalty Indonesia, a Japanese-founded CRM firm, and spun it off as a separate, independent company under Kaloh’s leadership. “This company manages all data processes and leverages our capabilities to accelerate business using data, online business, and digital marketing,” he added.“We became more independent because previously, all CRM and digital marketing were under the Alfamart marketing department, but we realised it would be difficult to grow our digital business while remaining under the retail company.”   Human-centric AI: A cautious embrace Alfamart’s approach to AI is measured and philosophical. While Kaloh is bullish on the promise of machine learning, he’s wary of overreliance.  “Working with machine learning and AI is beneficial, but complete dependence could leave us vulnerable when contracts end or vendors change,” the executive said. “We never allow our raw data to leave our sandbox or move from our side.”  “While we’re open to utilising AI and technology, we must protect certain areas based on our integration needs and capabilities.”  Alfamart parent company, PT Sumber Alfaria Trijaya Tbk, acquired shares in convenience chain Lawson Indonesia for $12.5 million from PT Midi Utama Indonesia Tbk last month.  Further reading: Asia’s influence and innovation in retail take centre stage at NRF’25.