Shopgrouper, an e-commerce product search engine developed by Mr Dicky Kwok and Mr Sun Lam, graduates of the Bachelor of Education (Honours) (Secondary) – Information and Communication Technology programme at The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK), was awarded a cash grant by the “Cyberport Creative Micro Fund – Hong Kong Young Entrepreneur Programme” to kick-start the business.

The business aims to make product searching available for both online and physical shops around the world, with a fast and accurate product searching experience for users. “Through using crawlers which we developed, products and physical locations of different online shops can be indexed for users to search for their desired products either by keywords or locations,” said Kwok. “We want to make shopping more convenient and enhance people’s quality of life, so that everyone is empowered to search for products from both online and offline shops easily.”

The start-up was also one of the University’s Education And Social Entrepreneurs (EASE) Fund Scheme 2019/20 applicant teams which had the opportunity to learn about entrepreneurial skills and marketplace knowledge through different training workshops and consultation sessions organised by the Knowledge Transfer Sub-office. Kwok said, “Although we were not shortlisted for the final pitching session, the Knowledge Transfer Sub-office provided us with advice to polish our business ideas, and bridged us with external entrepreneurial resources that enabled us to progress to where we are now.”

In addition to the cash grant from Cyberport, the team will join a mentorship programme and a series of enrichment activities in the coming few months to help them pursue their dream. With the funding support, they will launch the first phase of Shopgrouper focusing on fashion products in late August, targeting female customers aged from 20 to 40.