The trend of setting up a Facebook or Instagram Store to sell your stuff is no longer foreign in today’s world, because it’s not complicated as creating a brand new website to do so. In addition to that, we don’t have to pay a single penny to sell our items on social media platforms.
However, the perception of needing to spend tons of money to set up an e-commerce website is not true at all. Edwin Koh, the CFO of the Livescape Group and co-founder of Shoplympics found out that when it comes to setting up a proper e-commerce site, people tend to perceive that it would be expensive.
He saw a growing trend amongst young entrepreneurs who were building up online businesses via social media, namely Facebook and Instagram. There’s nothing wrong with doing that, plus it doesn’t cost you anything. The only concern is that these are not proper e-commerce platforms. Can you imagine Burberry, Louis Vuitton and Rolex using Facebook as their main online purchasing platform? The horror.
Launched last September, Shoplympics is a homegrown e-commerce platform. Through Shoplympics, sellers are able to create their very own online website without hassle in less than 10 minutes.
Website Walkthrough
The basic idea of Shoplympics is to provide sellers with an easy and seamless way to create a e-commerce website. As soon as you log on to the website, you can see a big banner on the website which claims that you only need to go through 8 simple steps to create your online store.
After I clicked on it, it led me to the page below, and I felt a wave of instant relief because I expected to fill up a long and tedious form—but fortunately, that was not the case.
In terms of the website’s design, this is the advantage of using Shoplympics. According to the website, they’ve asked top designers from Korea to design various user interfaces. So all you have to do is just pick one that you like and click next.
And there you have it, you can now begin to customise your online business.
Personal Review and Verdict
According to Harian Metro, Shoplympics have helped about 1,300 entrepreneurs to set up their e-commerce website since its launch in September 2014. They were also recognised as one of Malaysia’s Top 100 Startups and was awarded the People’s Choice Award at the recent E27 Echelon Technology and Business Conference in Singapore.
I must say Shoplympics is extremely easy to use. The website reminds me of online platforms like Weebly or Wix, where you can just create your beautifully designed website in less than an hour, with no coding knowledge required. If you’re solely planning to use it as a simple blogshop, the free features should be enough for you.
The Shoplympics team is constantly updating and adding new features, ranging from RM3 to RM50 to enhance the business flow and shopping experience. The interface is straightforward and user friendly, but its efficiency could be improved. I’d recommend this to people who want to make their online business more legitimate and want to be able to have their own website to personalise and customise their customers’ shopping experience.
