A red plastic shopping cartWhen we first started FoxyCart, we probably looked at over 100 different shopping carts. Everywhere we looked we saw the same problem. Software targeted to merchants and not to the developers who actually have to work with them. We saw stagnation and no innovation. We saw data duplication and one-size-fits-all solutions fitting nothing.

As a developer, why would I want to maintain two separate websites? Why is my e-commerce platform trying to be my CMS? Why is it trying to manage my mailing list? I mean, seriously, what the heck?

Without finding a better solution, we finally decided we would have to build it ourselves. One day in 2007, someone paid us who wasn’t an existing client of Brett’s web development company. He thought it was a friend of mine. Our SEO ranking for terms like “XHTML e-commerce” brought us an actual customer and forced us to launch our company.

Since then, we put all of our efforts into continually improving our technology, adding new features and gateways, and preparing for the future. One of our goals is to provide the best online checkout experience possible. To that end, our next 2.0 release will be fully responsive, easily configurable, and powerful.

We’re tackling the tough problems in a way that empowers developers instead of getting in their way. Their time is much better spent innovating solutions specific to the business model they’re serving. We understand this because FoxyCart’s competitive advantage relies on each team member also being a developer. When you talk to someone in our helpdesk, forum or on the phone, you’re talking to someone who writes code and uses FoxyCart.

We’ve grown to thousands of paying customers through word-of-mouth because of our technology and the way developers appreciate it. Where other companies have focus on growing their sales and marketing teams, we currently have neither. We’ve been focused on building a product and providing a service others will not only want to use but also to share with their colleagues.

If you’re part of this tribe of programmers and developers who have helped us grow the business, thank you. Thank you for spreading the word about how much you love what we’ve built. If you’re new to FoxyCart and you care about controlling the checkout experience, go ahead and sign up. FoxyCart is free to use while developing. You don’t need to start a subscription with us until you’re ready to go live and collect payment from your customers.

We’re really excited about the future and our roadmap to make this product even better. If you’ve benefitted from FoxyCart and the support we provide, let your friends know and share the love.

Together we can keep building more awesome.