The ups and downs of two friends establishing Shoppego.

Shoppego is an e-commerce platform that provides technology and tools for sellers to build online stores (e-commerce) to sell products and services on their own e-commerce websites.

Failing once or twice in business is enough to dampen someone's spirit to continue pursuing their passion in that field, let alone experiencing it 10 times.

However, it is different for these two best friends, Lutfi Azhar, 31, and Aizuddin Manap, 31, who never gave up or lost hope, finally tasting the sweetness of success after their 10th attempt, leading to the establishment of Shoppego.

Shoppego is a platform for entrepreneurs to easily own an online store in the form of a website even without technical knowledge or IT skills.

Speaking further about it, Lutfi said Shoppego was established at the end of 2013, after he and Aizuddin conducted a “hackathon” or a self-challenge to turn an idea or concept into a prototype within 24 hours.

He explained that such challenges had been undertaken by them since they both studied at Sekolah Menengah Teknik Kuala Lumpur in 2004 and it had become a yearly routine for both.

“From 2004 to 2012, all attempts to create a project, including startups, failed and did not gain public interest.”

“However, in 2013, our 10th attempt bore fruit, resulting in Shoppego. At that time, the social media Instagram (IG) was rising, and many entrepreneurs used it as a selling platform, which is how the name Shoppego came about,” he said when interviewed by BH in Cyberjaya recently.

Initially, he said, Shoppego functioned as a catalog preparation platform to facilitate IG entrepreneurs in sending the product lists they sell to customers.

“This was because, at the time, most entrepreneurs mixed their personal IG accounts with their businesses, making business operations inefficient and disorganized.”

“So, this is where Shoppego played a role, and it proved to be a great help to IG entrepreneurs. In fact, at the time, we offered this service for free,” he said.

Lutfi said that at the start of Shoppego's establishment, both of them did not manage it seriously as they were both still working and had their own commitments.

At that time, he ran a website development business, while Aizuddin worked as a developer at an IT company.

However, this changed in 2015 after he became heavily involved in the e-commerce sector by offering e-commerce website development services for clients, realizing a market opportunity in online store development.

He explained that many entrepreneurs, especially small-scale ones, wanted to have e-commerce stores but could not afford them due to a lack of expertise and the high costs, which could run into thousands of ringgit to hire experts.

“From there, we decided to change the direction of Shoppego and develop it in stages. Our focus at the time was to transform it from a catalog provider to a platform for building online stores.”

“The progress of this platform was quite slow because we couldn’t afford to hire developers due to the high costs involved. So, we developed it together, and it took almost five years to fully build it.”

“Shoppego was finally successfully launched on August 31 last year, and we decided to manage it full-time ever since,” he said.

At the start of its launch, they successfully received their first customer from Terengganu, a baby products merchant, during the first week of the launch.

However, he said that during the first month of operation, they noticed problems faced by customers who could not set up their online stores properly due to a lack of knowledge.

From there, he said, they decided to open classes in the second month to teach their customers the correct way to build their online stores so that they would function well and look attractive, in addition to receiving requests from customers themselves for such classes to be held.

“We also improved our services by providing video guides to customers to make it easier for them to understand,” he said.

Research from Statista showing that revenue from the e-commerce sector in Malaysia last year exceeded RM12 billion further strengthened the confidence of these two young men that their business has great potential and a bright future.

“Currently, we offer two packages to customers: the first is a basic package priced at RM349, and the premium package is priced at RM1,199, excluding class fees.”

“We also already have more than 500 customers and aim to increase it to 1,000 customers by the end of this year,” he said.

The current challenge they face is the difficulty in obtaining funding from any party, which has hindered their ability to grow faster.

He is also actively focusing on offering educational services to current or potential customers who want to learn about website development and digital marketing.