MyShoe.gr – From 5 orders per day to joining the shortlist of best European eShopsStartup and Scale
When the financial crisis struck Greece, Minoglou SA a 3-gen shoe production company found itself in a very difficult financial situation, as the majority of greek businesses.
So, new ideas, new concepts and a lot of technology came to the foreground, as the tools to face the recession. And MyShoe.gr, an online shoe retailer was build, when people hardly knew about eCommerce in Greece.
challenge
MyShoe.gr ages back to 2010. Which might sound a few years, in real life, but when it comes to eCommerce and Greece, that sounds almost ancient. And during that time, the challenges were quite a few:
- Luck of trust in Online Sales:
Today, more than 1 in 5 people buy only, others are frequent ROPO (Research online, purchase offline) buyers, but back in 2010, very few people trusted the internet for their purchases, especially when it the conversation was about fashion.
- Experience of managing an online pure player:
Shifting a company from manufacturing shoes, to an online property that intented to become a multi-brand shoe retailer is not an easy decision, especially if you don’t know many things on how to run a tech startup (by the definition of those ages).
- Reshaping the whole logistics process:
From operating a production plant that manufactured shoes to changing everything on the property and converting it to a logistics hub for picking and packing orders, is not an easy thing, not even writing it. Imagine on developing it.
solution
The greatest difficulty on all challenges, was not the cost nor the willingness of people to commit to the effort.
It was the lack of technology and necessary software to build something stable that would allow it to grow as problem-free, as possible.
So, we committed from the beginning to write our own software for everything. And to make our lives even more difficult, we decided to experiment on a new technology, to provide us flexibility, scalability, security and business continuity. It was the cloud.
And so we did. We developed a fully custom front-end for the website, a fully custom back-end for the website, an online ERP and reporting system, etc. We even developed a super past one-page phone ordering mechanism from scratch, as those days people felt easier to order that way, instead of placing an online order.
results
The first day MyShoe.gr was launched, back in 2010, it received 2 online orders, from two brave people. Since then, MyShoe started climbing rapidly with a double-digitl MoM increase, reaching:
- Over 10mil in sales
- Becoming the market leader with more than 50% market share (within 4 years)
- More than half a million satisfied customers
- Awarded, amongst the 20 other industry distinctions, as the Best Greek eShop, travelled to Barcelona to represent Greece in the European eCommerce Awards, and managed to enter the shortlist of the top-5 european webstores
Contact Fotis at i@fa.gr* and let’s discover how we can assist each other
(* yes, it’s the smallest email in the world!)
Want to learn eCommerce and digital marketing from a real pro? Bring Fotis to your organization.
He’s the real deal! He makes magic of the mystery of the digital world and delivers results. Very performance oriented, strategic and multitasking mind
Fotis is one the most experienced senior eBusiness professionals in the Balkans. He owns the know-how, he possesses the skills and he has access to a network of decision-makers, and that makes him a great fit for most difficult projects & senior positions in the industry.
Few people are as up-to-date with the innovations taking place in the tech, start up and e-Commerce industries, information which Fotis is able to transform to unique business ideas and proposals. More than all the above though, he approaches every issue with enthusiasm, humor and a positive attitude
