Marcus Richards
osCommerce is an free shopping cart and open source Ecommerce platform. We offer Ecommerce products, solutions, and services to any business in need of an advanced Ecommerce solution.
Tell us about yourself?
Software developer by trade, I created a software development company soon after graduating from the Uni in 2000 together with my then-co-ed, now-business partner Vlad.
In 2002 we had a client who asked to create an online store to sell DVDs. After the first Ecommerce project came 2nd, and then – many more.
For the last 20 years we have been involved in creation of over 3,000 advanced Ecommerce solutions for businesses ranging from small “spare bedroom” shop, to global multi-billion corporations. Ecommerce has never disappointed me personally, as it has been constantly developing and this is what makes it so interesting – to learn from business owners and to carry this knowledge, this experience forward via our Ecommerce solutions
If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
Keep your good work! Basically, just keep doing what you’ve been doing and don’t get distracted with what others have to say – keep trusting yourself!
What problem does your business solve?
We created a very advanced, flexible, modular Ecommerce platform for businesses, and offer it initially at no cost.
So if there’s a company or an individual who wants to start selling online, or they are not satisfied with the performance or features of their current Ecommerce software – they should consider using osCommerce.
It costs them nothing to start, there’s an option to download free or buy paid apps, or order extra services. And it allows them to sell more (i.e. the conversion rate is normally better), sell cheaper (i.e. the operational costs are lower), and, should they wish to change anything there – they can do it themselves from the back end, or their designated IT team or third-party developers can do it for them pretty quickly (i.e. change-to-market cycle is cheaper and quicker than ever before).
Ecommerce businesses become more competitive and generate more profit with osCommerce.
What is the inspiration behind your business?
Real-life business people are the source of the inspiration for me, personally. I am lucky as I get to communicate a lot with the top management or business owners of various businesses in all sorts of industries in the UK and worldwide. Some become friends for many years.
Hearing about their experiences, discussing business development ideas with them, learning from the best, and spreading this knowledge – is probably the best part of what I do.
My focus is always on what can be done to make businesses run more efficiently with the help of technology. What can be automated. What can be improved. What can be eliminated to make it cheaper, faster, better. This is typically what we (and I personally) try to do. This is what our Ecommerce software is designed for.
What is your magic sauce?
It is very simple, really. Basically, there are very few ingredients in the “magic sauce”, but they are so important!
- Listen to and learn from the best – we are fortunate to have always worked with successful business people, the heads of their own companies, and we always learnt from them, and accumulated their experience
- Keep moving – they say the moment you stop you fall behind. And that is very very true, especially in an IT business. In Ecommerce things change every month, maybe every week. Never ever we stop, we always look forward, to the new technological solutions. Not for the sake of the change, but for the sake of being able to offer something better, more efficient to the businesses
- Keep it real – all the solutions we offer, they are tested in real-life business situations. By real Ecommerce companies, by real people. We do not invent something out of the necessity to invent. We come up with ideas that we discuss with our clients (past and present) and only then we implement them. That’s how we optimise our development cycle and create a real difference for real businesses.
What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?
We want for osCommerce to become a mainstream Ecommerce solution. We want to see the number of users grow. We want to see the number of Development and Technological partners grow. We want to see the osCommerce community flourish. and benefit a lot from using osCommerce, from developing it.
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?
War in Ukraine is the biggest challenge to date. Many of our colleagues and developers are in Ukraine, and we had to watch them move to different parts of the country when the russian invasion started in February 2022. That was tough, really tough. But it looks like our colleagues were able to overcome the stress caused by the war and continued creating the amazing Ecommerce software that is osCommerce today.
How do people get involved/buy into your vision?
People (business owners, Ecommerce and Account managers, Developers, Consultants, you name it!) need something better than they already have – and they start looking for it. And they come across osCommerce, which is a simply amazing Ecommerce software – and it is free too by the way – it is really a no-brainer then! What’s more, it doesn’t stop at the point of migration to osCommerce. Running an osCommerce online store is so much easier and cheaper than using its competition.
Anyone who is interested, can “try before use” or simply start using osCommerce – go to our website https://www.osCommerce.com and choose the best option for you! We are looking forward to welcome you as the newest member of osCommerce community!
