 "Raymond Yip is CEO of Shopline. Image via Tech in Asia")
Raymond Yip, was born in Hong Kong but spent a considerable amount of his life living, studying and working in New York City. When he eventually moved back to Hong Kong to continue his career in banking, his work hours still revolved around New York time.
With spare mornings to tinker, Raymond used this valuable time to test and improve on the e-commerce ideas he saw in the West. This eventually became Shopline, a cloud based start-up that he co-founded with Tony Wong and Fiona Lau. I recently had a chance to chat with Raymond over a bowl of Pho in Hong Kong’s Central district.
Hi Raymond, Shopline’s been a great story for Hong Kong’s incredibly fast start-up industry growth. Can you tell us a bit about what the start-up environment was like in Hong Kong, maybe even just three or four years ago?
As early as three years ago, there were almost no coworking spaces. There was probably only The Hive and Cocoon and these spaces only featured a handful of events. Even then, there were a few people trying to turn Hong Kong into a place for startups. There weren’t many prominent startups then, rather a bunch of entrepreneurs trying their best to make it.
What do you think is happening in Hong Kong for e-commerce?
Hong Kong is so advanced in many regards, yet things are much slower to develop. Hong Kong’s retail spaces are so valuable that many companies resist change. Also, as a footprint, Hong Kong is quite small, so why would I order online when I can get something right downstairs or across the street?
