Every time when I visit ShaShinki.com, the Malaysia no.1 online camera store, I can't help to think why it still need a landing page like this?



Nevertheless, it's one of the rare e-commerce success stories locally and ever rarer for the founder to unveil some of his recipe to success.

Dr Koh Kho King, the founder of ShaShinki.com is featured in Sin Chew Cyberworld today and I think it's a worthy article to be translated and summarized here for those who miss it.

The road to success

Dr Koh, himself a photographer, co-founded www.photomalaysia.com in 2001, arguably Malaysia largest online photography community to date boosting more than 50,000 members. All those members are eventually his potential customers when he started www.shashinki.com in 2005.

ShaShinki is inspired during his PhD studies in Japan, where online shopping is already common there at the same time boosted with a huge variety of photography equipments.

Dr Koh is a self-taught programmer, and he didn't have any programming background prior to setting up ShaShinki. This is because he knew at that time he needs to keep relying on others if he doesn't do it himself since technology changes everyday. And he still tweak his site till date.

ShaShinki has more than 5,700 "active" products, shipping out 70 to 100 parcels daily with 6 employees helping Dr Koh. His own daily routine including replying more than 300 enquiries via email, trying out new products and writing reviews.

Dr Koh has a good memory, he can remember the specification and functionality of more than 5,000 products thus it's easier for him to answer customer's enquiries.

Tips to success

"Don't be too naive and think that the business will come by itself", this is Dr Koh's advice to new online store owners.

It's ultimately important to build your reputation and brand - "A rotten egg can easily spoil the whole pot of soup", this is especially true in this social media era.

Of course, you need to run your online business with passion, hardwork, sincerity and persistence to stand any chance of success in the future.

According to Dr Koh, sometimes it's not purely for profit when you run an online business. The real gain is when you earn a customer's trust. For example, sometimes a customer will reasonably request to exchange with a new arrival's. This is losing money on paper but he's willing to do so because he will be earning the customer's trust and reputation to his business.

Last but not least, ShaShinki usually ship the order within 24 hours. If payment is made and cleared before 3pm today, you will receive the goods by tomorrow.