Interview with Alla Petrychenko, co-founder of Shop-Express

Hello!

I’m Serhii Soloviov, CEO of Solve Marketing.

Today I will talk to Alla Petrychenko, co-founder of Shop-Express, a Ukrainian platform for creating branded online stores.

From the interview you will learn about:

challenges faced by online store owners;
product areas that have great potential;
tips for entrepreneurs on how to promote online stores;
online stores on Instagram vs. on the platform: which is better;
integration of neural networks into platforms for creating online stores.

— Please tell us about yourself and the Shop-Express platform.

— Hello, everyone, my name is Alla Petrychenko! I am a co-founder of Shop-Express, a Ukrainian platform for creating branded online stores.

Our service has been on the market for 6 years. We are partners of Microsoft in Ukraine, as well as many fintech companies.

Our main goal is to provide Ukrainian entrepreneurs with a convenient and holistic tool for e-commerce.

The Shop-Express platform is an opportunity for those who are just starting to implement new projects and test different promotion channels. Since it is possible to try the service for free and continue to use the clear functionality at affordable rates.

The service is also useful for large industries that open stores with a specific product line, as well as specifically for franchisees or other B2B sellers who will have the right to sell their product.

— What do you think is the most important thing in creating an online store?

— This is a great question for both beginners and advanced entrepreneurs who have experience in offline sales.

The most important thing is to understand your business model: determine whether it should be a supplement to an existing offline store or purely online trading.

For example, for an experienced offline seller, it is important to clearly understand whether the online store will be integrated with the warehouse so that the latest information is displayed in real time.

— How did you decide to create the Shop-Express platform?

— Back 12 years ago, we worked as a regular web studio that developed online stores individually on a turnkey basis for each client. It was a classic process that consisted of creating a unique design, layout, and integration with a CMS (content management system). In addition, it was necessary to update it and answer numerous questions from clients.

In the course of our work, we identified the following pains of the target audience in the market:

Developing an online store takes a lot of time. First of all, the deadline is currently one of the most important criteria due to the unstable situation in Ukraine and in the world, and the associated difficulties in long-term planning.
High cost of the service. This is due to the fact that several specialists work on the creation of a store. But in a crisis, entrepreneurs do not have such a budget or do not risk spending it because they are not sure that the costs will pay off.
There is no trust or understanding of how to cooperate with IT specialists. Indeed, not everyone can create a technical task for an IT team. And it’s hard to find specialists who will take responsibility for the work and will also continue to train and provide technical support.

With this in mind, we created Shop-Express, a platform where you can test, familiarize yourself with the packages and find out what opportunities they provide. And only then entrepreneurs decide to purchase a monthly or annual subscription with hosting.

— On your website, you mentioned that you create online stores without programmers and without templates at the same time. How is this possible? Please tell us more about it.

— When we planned to create the platform, we immediately decided that we would not work with templates. Because this method permanently defines all the elements on the internal pages of an online store. You can use it only if you don’t want to change anything at first.

Why is it worth redesigning a website created using a template over time? When choosing a product, users will compare you with your competitors and determine who they will turn to. Therefore, to build a brand, increase its recognition and audience loyalty, your store should look unique.

That is why our platform works on a modular model. That is, users have access to ready-made necessary elements for an online store: header, footer, cart, etc. The service also has modules for forms and SEO promotion, integration with marketplaces and payment systems, etc. They have already been tested by programmers and do not require any modifications for individual stores.

And to create the design, we collected 15 universal themes and implemented a system that allows you to use elements of internal pages arbitrarily and adhere to a single corporate identity.

— What are the steps involved in creating an online store?

— The client provides us with answers to several questions, such as the presence of a logo, information about the products, which design theme they have chosen for their online store, etc.

After that, our designer creates a design within one or two days for free — this is an express online store design service that is included in the annual subscription.

If the client has digitized product files, we can also fill in the product catalog.

Then we immediately provide the result — an online store with a customized branded design and access to the administrative panel, where the client only needs to make changes and launch the store in a short time.

— What challenges does the owner of a new online store face? How do you help to solve them with your platform?

— If we are talking about those who are starting a business for the first time, especially online, it is important for them to find a niche that they understand and feel comfortable with. After determining this, they should proceed to creating an online store on the platform and testing it with a free 7-day subscription. Often, such entrepreneurs face the challenge of finding ways to attract customers.

Instead, experienced online store owners have already had experience selling offline, on marketplaces, or on social media. Therefore, the challenge for them is to master the store as a promotion channel and regularly research the activities of competitors.

— Please tell us how the war has affected your business. What has changed?

— As I have already mentioned, we created Shop-Express to develop e-commerce in Ukraine. We feel the need for such a tool especially now, as entrepreneurs have fewer resources to create online stores and less time for planning due to the full-scale war in Ukraine. Usually, the development of such a website used to take 3 months or more and cost $3000+.

What has changed? Requirements for functionality have increased: users have started asking for more integrations, features, flexibility, etc. Despite this, the number of platform clients has also increased.

The second trend is the growing demand for migration of online stores from Russian software such as Insales and Tilda. Therefore, we have created a solution to easily transfer data from these services to our platform.

We also established the first Online Trade Development Program for small and medium-sized businesses. We did it together with eight partners: OLX, lifecell, Monobank, Webpromo, and others. We are sincerely grateful to them for providing resources, expertise, and their services for our work.

This program helps you start your own business, sell online, attract traffic, and expand to new and more powerful markets. This will contribute to the accelerated recovery of the Ukrainian economy.

In addition, we provide entrepreneurs with discounts for using the Shop-Express platform so that their businesses can operate and recover.

— So have you had more customers since the beginning of the war, as they started looking for alternative solutions to development from scratch?

— That’s right)

7-8 years ago, many of us had no idea what would happen to e-commerce. But the COVID-19 pandemic and temporary restrictions on offline trading accelerated the process of moving online. And the war has continued this trend, forcing entrepreneurs to look for quick and profitable solutions to create and maintain online stores.

— What new business topics have emerged in the e-commerce niche in Ukraine recently? What is most in demand?

— Of course, these are traditional product areas, such as clothing, products for children and animals, footwear, cosmetics, etc.

First of all, due to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, online stores selling tactical equipment, goods for sports, tourism and outdoor activities began to open and operate.

The third area is the sale of generators, power banks, flashlights and other lighting devices, which have increased in demand during blackouts and scheduled power outages in Ukraine.

Today, the situation on the Ukrainian market is constantly changing, so online retailers need to respond quickly to emerging demand and be ready to change their product line.

We are currently noticing that more and more stores on our platform are choosing neutral design, brand name and domain, and selling different products depending on the season and market situation.

Interview with Alla Petrychenko, co-founder of the Ukrainian platform Shop-Express

— Are there any product areas that you consider to be undervalued? That is, are there areas that have great potential for development, but there are still not enough people willing to open an online store in these niches?

— Yes, of course!

This is the direction of production in Ukraine. I am sure that our products will be actively bought both on the Ukrainian market and on the global market)

— What advice do you have for online store owners?

— Yes, I advise you to become a brand and scale up, even if you have just opened your own online store yesterday. How to do it?

If we are talking directly about the online store, test all available e-commerce tools on the platform, in particular, Shop-Express.

Also, use various channels of additional online development: marketplaces, Instagram and Facebook promotion, Google ADS advertising, SEO promotion, etc. Test them, compare the results, and continue to use the tools that best attract and convert users into customers.

Also, spread more information about your brand:

the company’s mission;
what you sell and for whom;
competitive advantages of your brand:
etc.

This will increase customer loyalty to your online store and make them choose it over similar offers.

— Thank you, great tips!

You partially mentioned that the Shop-Express platform is adapted for SEO promotion. I know that this is a question that worries many people, because using SEO looks attractive, but it can cause concerns about the amount of resources required.

How do you implement it? How fast is it to implement SEO recommendations with your platform compared to doing it from scratch?

— We often hear that the Shop-Express platform is a good solution both for an SEO studio that will be working on a website and for a client who chooses a platform to create an online store. Because its development in a web studio does not guarantee that it will have all the necessary technical capabilities that will allow SEO specialists to do their job efficiently.

From time to time, we are approached by many SEO studios and specialists with numerous requests and technical specifications, which we take into account and update the platform.

Recently, we have even added an integration with GPT chat, which makes it easier to generate unique titles and descriptions for each page separately. This makes the work of SEO specialists much easier.

So, I encourage you to use the Shop-Express platform, as it is really effective and contributes to successful SEO promotion.

— Today, there is a globalization trend when market giants are trying to absorb the entire e-commerce. Do you think new stores have a chance to successfully take a leading position in their niche?

— Definitely yes)

But only if you don’t make mistakes, which I’ll talk about later.

Usually, when starting out in e-commerce, online store owners intuitively choose a tool where they can immediately get their first sales — marketplaces.

But when using this sales channel, it’s important to understand that your products compete with other similar or very similar ones in the relevant section. Therefore, even if you managed to get one sale from the first customer, the chances of a repeat purchase from him are low. It is likely that he will find the same product from another seller and purchase it. The only solution to attract the attention of a potential customer in this case is to sell goods at a price lower than your competitors. However, this approach is not suitable for all economic business models, especially if the margin is too small.

Also, it is impossible to develop as a brand on a marketplace: to prove its uniqueness, emphasize its strengths, tell about its mission, etc.

So, a marketplace should be used as one of the tools for promoting a business, but it should not be the main sales channel.

Therefore, it is better to create your own online store, which will also have integration with marketplaces, but will also allow you to use other ways to attract customers.

— What are the advantages of creating a website on your platform compared to sales via Instagram?

— Instagram is a well-known way to start selling products online at no extra cost. But over time, entrepreneurs face the fact that advertising on this social network is quite expensive. And it is difficult to process orders when there are a lot of them. Therefore, Instagram is mostly an additional sales channel that complements your own branded online store.

— Based on the experience of our clients, we have seen that online stores on Instagram are commonplace in our region. However, in the European market, they do not inspire confidence among consumers, and this will not be enough for successful promotion.

— Instagram is also not suitable for all product areas. It’s hard to imagine how to promote technical or medical products using this social network. The only thing left to do here is to create an online store.

— How long have your clients been working with you? Give an example of a project you have been working with for a long time.

— In 2018, we were approached by a master of sports in boxing who had opened his own training studio for adults and children. His request was for an online store of sports goods. At that time, he ordered the simplest free package and extended it for a minimum period of one month. He set up the store completely on his own, without our help. Today, this online store is still operating.

We also have a project that we have been working with since the days of the web studio in 2006 — a car service center. Even before Shop-Express, we created a branded website with an online store for it. Later, we transferred it to our platform, where it is constantly updated, and the pages are improved both technically and content-wise.

I’ll tell you about another interesting case study on how to adapt to changes in the market, in Ukraine, and in the world at large. Our project is a chain of offline home furnishing stores. But even before Covid 19, they had already begun digitizing to be among the first to occupy their niche online. Before the pandemic, they managed to create a store on our platform and launch SEO promotion. This strategy proved to be especially successful when most of their stores were closed and the number of customers and sales dropped. Currently, they don’t have a single offline store. Instead, they occupy top positions and use those additional sales channels that are most suitable for their target audience: Google ads, marketplaces, etc.

— What plans do you have for the development of the platform? Are you going to enter the markets of other countries?

— Our platform is constantly being improved as we take into account feedback from our customers. Our technical support team works every day to provide advice on how to use the platform. It is our customers who provide us with such interesting insights as integration with GPT chat and new ways of selling. This is how the platform becomes more convenient and functional for our clients and their marketing activities.

Although our core team is located in Ukraine, stores on the Shop-Express platform meet the requirements of online trading in different European countries. We support multilingualism, multicurrency, and the ability to upload product feeds depending on the trading plans. Our platform can be easily adapted to different foreign markets, for example, in Germany, additional fields in the checkout for the customer’s gender and postal code appear on the checkout. We also provide the ability to connect our own payment and delivery methods, which is very useful for both Ukrainian stores and international operations.

With this in mind, we are already planning to enter several markets.

— How often is the Shop-Express platform updated?

— The platform is updated several times a month, both for SEO purposes and in terms of convenience and new features.

In general, Shop-Express updates are installed simultaneously for all stores, even for those that have been operating for a long time, so they always remain relevant. This is a significant advantage compared to custom development, where an online store may become outdated in a year and a half and require redevelopment from scratch. Instead, our platform provides the necessary functions and is scalable: it is possible to change the store, redesign it, etc. A similar approach is also used in the international market by the well-known Shopify service.