General Merchandise Stores in Indonesia: Market Overview & Outlook 2027-2032

Market Overview

For a generation of Indonesians, a trip to the mall meant a trip to Matahari or Ramayana. Families bought their Lebaran outfits there, children got new school shoes, and the department store was the anchor that brought crowds to the mall. That role is fading. Shoppers now compare prices on their phones, cheap imported clothing is everywhere online, and the stores that draw young crowds into malls today are more likely to be pink-themed Miniso shops than four-floor department stores.

We estimate sales through Indonesia's general merchandise stores, that is department stores and variety stores, at about IDR 30.1 trillion in 2025, or about USD 1.83 billion at IDR 16,400 per dollar. That figure counts consignment sales at their full shelf value. It is about 3% lower than in 2024 and still around 31% below the 2019 peak of roughly IDR 43.7 trillion, before COVID-19 closed malls for months.

The two halves of the market are moving in opposite directions. Department stores, which still account for about XX% of sales, have never recovered from the pandemic, and lost about X% more in 2025. Variety stores have nearly doubled their sales since 2019 and grew about XX% in 2025. The result is a flat total that hides a deep change in how Indonesians shop for clothes, gifts and small lifestyle items.

Listed results show how hard 2025 was. Matahari Department Store reported net revenue of IDR X.XX trillion, down X.X%, and net profit of IDR XXX billion, down XX.X%. Ramayana's revenue fell XX.X% to IDR X.XX trillion and its profit fell XX.X% to IDR XXX billion. Both companies remain profitable, largely because much of what they sell is on consignment, but their sales are shrinking.

Who Shops in Department and Variety Stores

Department stores in Indonesia live and die by one season. During Ramadan, many families receive the holiday allowance known as THR and buy new clothes for Eid. In the quarter that includes Lebaran, mass-market department stores can make about a third of their annual sales. When that season disappoints, as it did in 2025, the whole year suffers: Matahari's same-store sales fell X.X% in the first quarter of 2025.

Online shopping has taken the planned purchase. According to the e-Conomy SEA 2025 report by Google, Temasek and Bain, Indonesia's e-commerce sales reached about USD XX billion in 2025, up more than XX%, and video commerce transactions rose about XX%. A shopper who knows she needs a pair of jeans can find more choice and a better price on Shopee or TikTok Shop than in a department store. Middle-class budgets have also been squeezed by layoffs and slow wage growth; the Indonesian press coined "rojali", short for rombongan jarang beli (groups that rarely buy), for mall visitors who come to look rather than spend. For more context, see our study of purchasing power in Indonesia.

Young shoppers behave differently. For Gen Z and Gen Alpha, malls are places to meet friends, take photos and pick up small treats: a plush toy, a lip tint, a blind box with a mystery figure. These purchases are cheap, emotional and unplanned, which is exactly the kind of buying that e-commerce struggles to replace. Variety stores are built around them.

Regulation: Licensing, Imports and Product Standards

Opening a store in Indonesia requires business permits through the OSS licensing system and compliance with zoning rules for modern stores and malls. Foreign ownership of retailers is governed by the Positive Investment List, and many international department store banners, such as Sogo, Seibu and Galeries Lafayette, operate through local partners such as MAP.

Import policy matters a great deal for both halves of the market. Variety stores import most of their goods from China and elsewhere in Asia, and their toys must carry the mandatory SNI mark, while cosmetics need BPOM registration. Department stores face the opposite problem: cheap and illegally imported clothing undercuts their prices. The government created a task force against illegal imports in 2024, and how strictly it enforces the rules will shape mass-market fashion prices.

Two other policies affect costs and competition. Regional minimum wages rose about X.X% for 2025, adding to the cost of staffing large stores. And the 2023 rule separating social media from online shop transactions briefly disrupted TikTok's shopping feature, until TikTok Shop merged with Tokopedia and online selling continued to grow.

Formats: Department Stores Versus Variety Stores

We split the market into three formats. Mass-market department stores, led by Matahari, Ramayana and Yogya, account for about XX% of sales. Upscale department stores such as Metro, Sogo, Seibu and Galeries Lafayette account for about XX%. Variety stores such as Miniso, OH!SOME and Daiso now account for about XX%, up from about X% in 2019.

What the two formats sell is very different. In department stores, apparel makes up more than half of sales, followed by footwear and bags, beauty and children's goods. Much of it is sold on consignment: brand owners stock the floor and the store takes a commission, which is why Matahari reports both direct sales (IDR X.XX trillion in 2025) and consignment income (IDR X.XX trillion). Variety stores sell beauty products, plush toys, stationery, kitchen gadgets and gifts, mostly priced between IDR XX,XXX and IDR XXX,XXX, and design and source most of them themselves. Our report on colour cosmetics in Indonesia shows how much of that beauty spending has moved to cheap local brands.

The economics follow from that difference. A department store earns a commission on a shirt whose margin mostly belongs to the brand, and has to cover the rent and staff of a store of 3,000–10,000 square metres. A variety chain keeps the brand margin on its own products, runs stores of 100–1,000 square metres and opens them quickly. Segment growth rates and the full price build-up are in the report.

Selling space tells the same story. Total selling space has fallen by about a quarter since 2019, to roughly X.XX million square metres in 2025, as large department stores closed or shrank. At the same time, the number of stores rose to about 1,220, because each new variety store is small. Average store size has fallen from about 2,700 to about 1,670 square metres, and sales per square metre are still below their pre-pandemic level.

Store Networks, Malls and Online

Store networks are being reset. Matahari closed 13 underperforming stores in 2024 and announced in 2025 that eight more would close; we estimate it now runs about 140 stores. Ramayana is also trimming weak locations. Miniso, meanwhile, opened more than 80 stores in 2024 alone and says it now has more than 300 stores and over XX million members in Indonesia.

This matters to mall owners. Department stores have long been the anchors of Indonesian malls, and when one closes, the landlord needs something else to bring in visitors. Jakarta's mall occupancy has hovered around XX%, according to Colliers, with prime malls doing much better than older middle-class ones. Variety chains, food and beverage and entertainment are taking the space. OH!SOME, which rebranded from KKV, links its stores with FuniFun play arenas and has expanded as far as Sorong in Papua.

Online is both a threat and a tool. Miniso sells through Shopee, Tokopedia, Lazada and Blibli, reaching customers in towns without a store, and Matahari runs its own online store. But for department stores, online mostly means lost sales. For more on how modern retail is spreading, see our report on convenience retailers in Indonesia. Channel and regional splits are in the full report.

Competitive Landscape

Matahari is still the clear leader, with about XX% of sales in 2025. The biggest change is in second place: by our estimate, Miniso, with about XX%, passed Ramayana, with about XX%, in 2025. Yogya, Metro and Sogo and Seibu follow.

Miniso's rise is the story of the decade. The Chinese chain borrowed the look of Japanese variety stores, which many Indonesian shoppers associate with quality, and combined it with low prices and a constant flow of licensed characters, from Sanrio and Disney to Chiikawa and the Powerpuff Girls. It has also kept reinventing its stores: Miniso Pink for younger shoppers, a 3,000 square metre flagship in Jakarta in 2024, the first Miniso Friends store in 2026, and Southeast Asia's first Super Miniso at Pondok Indah Mall 5 in October 2026.

The department store leaders are responding by shrinking and rethinking. Matahari's shareholders approved a change of name to MDS Retailing in April 2026, and the company has been reviewing new store concepts, while still proposing a dividend of IDR XXX per share. Ramayana had targeted X% profit growth for 2025 but saw profit fall. Regional chain Yogya, which combines fashion with groceries, has held up better than fashion-only stores. Share shifts by year and profiles of the five leading companies are in the full report.

New competition keeps arriving in the variety segment. OH!SOME passed 150 stores within about a year of its rebrand, and the KKV brand itself entered Indonesia in 2026, according to trade press reports. Daiso's single-price stores remain a small but familiar niche. For landlords, more variety chains mean more choice of tenants; for the chains themselves, they mean that the easy gains from opening stores in empty malls will not last forever.

What This Means for Retailers, Brands and Investors

Indonesia's general merchandise stores are splitting in two. For department store operators, the lesson is that range alone no longer brings shoppers in; fewer, better stores with a clear reason to visit are the way forward. For brands, variety and upscale stores are the growth channels for shop-in-shops and licensed products. For landlords, former department store space is an opportunity for variety, food and entertainment tenants. For investors, the listed department stores remain cash-rich and pay high dividends, while the growth is in variety chains.

This article describes the market as it stands today. The full report adds the price build-up of a consignment shirt and a variety store toy, business models, Porter's Five Forces, eight mega trends, an impact assessment of drivers and restraints, segment sizes, store networks, five company profiles and bear, base and bull forecasts to 2032.

Key Questions Answered in the Full Report

General Merchandise Stores in Indonesia: Market Overview & Outlook 2027-2032 Executive Summary

The three slides below summarise the full report. The complete 40-slide version, with the outlook to 2032, value chain, regulation and company profiles, is available on Gumroad.

What the Full Report Includes