Had Failed, Amazara Returned to Maturing Business with New Strategies

Founded in 2015 in Yogyakarta, Amazara sells shoes and various other products online online. Due to personal reasons and management issues, the startup failed around 2019 and chose to close their business.

However, learning from the experience gained, Founder & CEO Uma Hapsari decided to restart his business. With a solid team and more mature market research, Amazara now chooses to focus on producing and selling shoe products.

Uma's hard work and strategy has paid off, within 5-6 months, the company has again received orders and increased the number of customers.

"For various reasons I decided to close the company. But with a new spirit and utilizing social media, Amazara was able to resume operations in February 2020," said Uma.

Partnering with shoemakers and factories

To be able to produce a variety of quality shoe products and remain relevant, Amazara has formed partnerships with several craftsmen and shoe manufacturers; the number is currently around 10 partners. And to ensure that all processes comply with company standards, the Amazara team monitors and controls the production process.

"We don't focus on growth at all costs. Our business model is merchandising. This means that we are traders and sell shoes. We believe that quality and service are the company's priorities," said Uma.

Currently the company claims to have around 100 thousand customers. Besides website, Amazara also took advantage of official store on multiple platforms marketplace. Meanwhile, for promotion and communication channels, Amazara uses Instagram and WhatsApp social media accounts.

"We don't have any plans to launch an application for now and in the future. Our focus is on producing shoes that are mostly in demand by millennials aged around 17-34 years," said Uma.

Pandemic and funding

Watches Covid-19 pandemic began to spread in Indonesia, sales of shoes produced by Amazara experienced a drastic decline. To outsmart this condition, they then present online mentoring for SMEs who want to learn more deeply from Uma Hapsari. The response turned out to be quite positive, during the activity there were 1500 registrants who were interested in joining the session.

"Impact of these activities are engagement from the audience and of course awareness to brand we. Even though our income has decreased, we are exposed more widely through this activity which we present for free," said Uma.

Another obstacle faced by Amazara during the pandemic was the reduced production of shoes due to the PSBB rules implemented by the government. Not only is there no supply of raw materials, but many craftsmen also return to their hometowns.

"However, this month conditions are gradually returning to normal and production can be resumed. We have also started receiving orders from customers. Fortunately, shopping activities online has never subsided during the pandemic until now," said Uma.

After having discussions with Salt Ventures in 2019, the company finally bagged early-stage funding from them. With this funding, Amazara doesn't just want to be a shoe sales platform online, but also want to be platform mentoring to help other SME players run their businesses.

"This has become our vision and mission when discussing with Salt Ventures. We hope that we can contribute to other businesses so that they can move forward together," said Uma.