Warung Ground Research – andiastika.com

01. Overview

Ula wanted to understand the people behind Indonesia’s warung ecosystem, not simply what they sold, but how they operated, what motivated them, and what made some businesses more likely to grow and sustain themselves.

I joined a 12 person research and design team conducting field research across five cities in Indonesia.

The goal was to build a deeper understanding of warung owners that could inform future retailer targeting, segmentation, acquisition, product strategy, and programs for warung owners.

02. My Contribution

This was not a small qualitative study. The research team needed to understand patterns across a large and diverse set of warung businesses.

We divided 12 researchers into six field teams and visited predetermined areas across:

JaDeTaBek · Bandung · Semarang · Yogyakarta · Malang · Surabaya · Bali

[GANTI INI: deskripsi gambar yang informatif] — Mapping the researched areas

Each researcher walked through selected areas and approached warung owners using a shared interview guide.

Based on the team’s field experience, approximately 1 in 4 warung owners agreed to participate, resulting in roughly 273 completed interviews/observations from around 816 approaches.

I personally visited approximately 40 warungs across the research period.

My contribution included:

Conducting in-depth interviews
Observing store operations
Capturing contextual details
Following the shared research guide
Bringing field observations into synthesis
Participating in the 10-day workshop
Contributing to the identification and classification of behavioral patterns
Helping translate findings into a framework that could support business and product decisions

03. Research Approach

We used in-depth interviews combined with observation to understand both what warung owners said and what they actually did.

The interview guide was standardized across the research team to maintain consistency across locations.

We explored six areas

Basic Information

Store age, location, size, employees, revenue, inventory and operating hours.

Store History

Why they started, previous occupation, evolution of the business and challenges.

Competition

Competitors, customer retention and how owners responded to competition.

Operations & Finance

Capital, income changes, inventory, suppliers, products and daily routines.

Community

Customer relationships, repeat purchases, differentiation and community participation.

Technology

How owners used phones, applications and digital tools in their daily business.

04. From Fieldwork to Synthesis

After the fieldwork, the research and design teams came together for a synthesis workshop lasting approximately 10 days.

Instead of analyzing each interview independently, we brought observations from different cities and researchers together to identify recurring behaviors, motivations and characteristics.

The team looked for similarities across the data:

What behaviors appeared repeatedly?
What separated more ambitious warung owners from more passive ones?
What characteristics could indicate potential for growth?

These discussions eventually led to the Leader vs Follower framework.

05. What We Found

Before looking at behavioral traits, we first identified several patterns in how warungs operated.

01) Sales

74% of the 273 warungs researched averaged daily sales between 500K–1M.

02) Store Age

Younger stores were already competing with established businesses. 41% of the warungs were less than 6 years old, while competing with older stores at similar sales levels.

03) Operational Hours

Time invested in the business influenced sales potential. Stores operating around 12–16 hours per day tended to reach higher sales levels, with some approaching 5M.

04) Location

Store operated also mattered. Main road stores generally saw higher sales due to visibility and access to both regular customers and passers-by.

05) From Operations to Behavioral Patterns

Among the 273 warungs visited, 134 displayed four key traits suggesting leadership potential, while 139 showed a more passive “follower” approach.

Store visit data by city trait and classification
Trait	Stores Visited	Classification
Socially Engaged	57	Leader
Entrepreneurial & Innovative	48	Leader
Community-Driven	42	Leader
Tech-Enabled	36	Leader
Generic Stores	139	Follower
Total	273	—

The synthesis revealed four behavioral characteristics associated with the Leader group:

01
Socially Engaged

Owners who built strong relationships with customers and their surrounding communities.

02
Entrepreneurial & Innovative

Owners who actively experimented, adapted and looked for ways to improve their business.

03
Community-Driven

Owners whose motivation was strongly connected to family, community and social status.

04
Tech-Enabled

Owners who actively adopted technology to support their business.

06) Evidence Behind the Framework

a) Socially Engaged

b) Entrepreneurial & Innovative

c) Community-Driven

d) Tech-Enabled

06. The Human Story Behind the Data

Technology adoption was not always about age

During the field research, one store particularly challenged my assumptions.

A warung was operated by a retired owner who opened the business to stay active during retirement.

What surprised me was how he managed inventory using a computer application developed by his son, who was a programmer.

For me, this was an important reminder:

07. What This Meant for Ula

The research was not intended to end with a research report.

The team synthesized the findings and prepared a presentation for company leadership and management.

The research became an input into several areas:

Retailer Targeting

Which types of warung should Ula prioritize?

Segmentation

How can different types of retailers be understood?

Acquisition Strategy

Which retailers are more promising to acquire?

Product Strategy

What capabilities or services could better support different retailer types?

Warung Programs

What kind of treatment or programs could support “Leader” warungs?

Further Research

Which hypotheses required deeper investigation?

Although I reached the final stage, I never received feedback on my submission despite requesting it. That experience reinforced my belief that thoughtful feedback is essential not only for improving design, but also for helping people grow throughout their careers.

Today, whenever I mentor designers or collaborate with teammates, I try to provide constructive feedback whenever possible because I know how valuable it can be.

08. Reflection

This project changed how I think about field research.

At the beginning, it was easy to think of each interview as an individual story. But with hundreds of stores being observed across different cities, the challenge became finding meaningful patterns without losing the context behind them.

I learned that research at scale requires two abilities at the same time:

Zoom in

Understand the individual person’s motivations and context.

Zoom out

Recognize patterns that can inform broader product and business decisions.

One of the strongest examples was the retired warung owner using a computer for inventory management. It reminded me that assumptions about users, especially assumptions based on age or demographics can easily hide opportunities.

Want to discuss this project?

I’d love to talk through the process, the decisions, and the lessons learned.