January 5, 2026 | 10:01 am
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Window shoppers or rojali are making a comeback in the Year of the Fire Horse. The word rojali, an Indonesian acronym for “people who rarely buy,” has been widely discussed since mid-2025. Alongside similar labels such as rohana (people who only ask) and rohalus (people who only touch the ), rojali has re-emerged as a reflection of weakening public purchasing power. They crowd shopping centers but buy nothing. Rojali is a portrait of consumers holding back spending as their buying power comes under pressure.
The phenomenon aligns with household consumption data, which in the third quarter of 2025 grew just 4.89 percent, down from 4.97 percent in the previous quarter. This was despite the fact that household consumption remained the main pillar of economic growth.
At the Economic Outlook 2026 discussion on December 19, 2025, the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) projected that the window-shoppers and similar phenomena would return this year. One key reason is the continued decline of the middle class. As many middle-class households slip into the aspiring middle class category, overall spending and consumption also fall.
Over the past five years, Indonesia’s middle class has shrunk dramatically. During the Covid-19 pandemic, its size was estimated at 57.22 million people, or about 21.45 percent of the population. By 2024, that figure had dropped by 9.48 million, leaving 47.85 million people, or roughly 17.13 percent.
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