Marc Schillaci - Oxatis Founder and CEO

E-Commerce Academy: Awards Ceremony February 2010

No two days are ever the same. And at Oxatis, that couldn't be more true!

Wednesday night, we had our gala dinner at La Tour d'Argent for the E-Commerce Academy awards ceremony.

Forty or so guests all talking about e-commerce....that ends up making a lot of noise, in a good way or course, and creates a truly unique experience!

The only thing missing was Alcante, winner of the General Category, who was stuck due to ongoing train strikes. Philippe Stano from Graphical Dream, the Oxatis Graphic Partner that designed their graphic charter and understood how to communicate Roger-Charles Hispa's passion, stood in for them. A few years ago, Roger-Charles, an older entrepreneur, realized the impact E-Commerce could have on the development potential of his local scented candle business and took the leap!

It was an exceptional evening where the winners, Marie-Hélène Piot and Sylvie Mourgues from Avec Passion, Karine and Patrick Gidouin from Ledressingbyines, Lucas Baupère from Boitissimo, Anibal Barreira and Cyril Guizy from AlliancePaintball, were able to mingle with journalists, bloggers, representatives from official institutions and Oxatis partners (all indiscriminately brought together for this event with a complete disregard for status...shall no one's wrath be brought down upon me:)).

We had the pleasure of spending the evening with guests from all of these sectors. Drawing up a complete list isn't easy, so forgive me if I've left anyone out....

In addition to the nominees, the Oxatis teams and our partners, Christine Lorimy from Coliposte, Bertrand Pineau from the Fevad, Christophe Lauer and Lubomira Rochet from Microsoft, Philippe Stano from Graphical Dream, we were also pleased to welcome:

Martine Fuxa from E-Commerce Mag, Laurent Calixte from Challenges, Julien Pompey from Echos, Corine Moriou from Entreprise, Robert Lafont from the Group Robert Lafont, Elodie Toustou from Le Monde éco, Olivier Levy from Blog E-Commerce, Anne-Françoise Rabaud from Chef d'entreprise Mag, Florence Duprat from BFM TV, Pascal Galinier from Le Monde, Carine Gouradiec from VSD, Andrea Graells from the AFP, Carine Guicheteau from Artisans Mag, Philippe Mabille from La Tribune, Isabelle Marsal from Madame Figaro, Guillaume Grallet  from Le Point, Daniel Rosenweg from Le Parisien Eco and Julien Chaumont from the DGCIS.

In addition to the pleasure of handing out the prizes and sharing an excellent meal, this kind of ceremony is also the occasion to get additional feedback from our users. Karine Gidouin from Ledressingbyines confided that she was truly touched and grateful that technical support has been such a big help to them on a daily basis. And their shop is only 3 months old! This proves that true value doesn't take years to be appreciated!

Avecpassion brought their experience to the table sharing, as in the past, that E-Commerce saved their business. Two years ago, their high street store represented two-thirds of their sales versus one-third for their online shop. Today, it's the other way around.

AlliancePaintball started out really small. They specialized in a niche sector and now their activity generates between 80 and 120K€/month (a very large majority of that from their site).

And as the old adage goes, a picture is worth a thousand words...

Want to be part of the fun? The Oxatis E-Commerce Academy is open to all Oxatis users. All you have to do is enter your site in the next E-Commerce Academy!

No two days are ever the same. And at Oxatis, that couldn't be more true!

Wednesday night, we had our gala dinner at La Tour d'Argent for the E-Commerce Academy awards ceremony.

Forty or so guests all talking about e-commerce....that ends up making a lot of noise, in a good way or course, and creates a truly unique experience!

The only thing missing was Alcante, winner of the General Category, who was stuck due to ongoing train strikes. Philippe Stano from Graphical Dream, the Oxatis Graphic Partner that designed their graphic charter and understood how to communicate Roger-Charles Hispa's passion, stood in for them. A few years ago, Roger-Charles, an older entrepreneur, realized the impact E-Commerce could have on the development potential of his local scented candle business and took the leap!

It was an exceptional evening where the winners, Marie-Hélène Piot and Sylvie Mourgues from Avec Passion, Karine and Patrick Gidouin from Ledressingbyines, Lucas Baupère from Boitissimo, Anibal Barreira and Cyril Guizy from AlliancePaintball, were able to mingle with journalists, bloggers, representatives from official institutions and Oxatis partners (all indiscriminately brought together for this event with a complete disregard for status...shall no one's wrath be brought down upon me:)).

We had the pleasure of spending the evening with guests from all of these sectors. Drawing up a complete list isn't easy, so forgive me if I've left anyone out....

In addition to the nominees, the Oxatis teams and our partners, Christine Lorimy from Coliposte, Bertrand Pineau from the Fevad, Christophe Lauer and Lubomira Rochet from Microsoft, Philippe Stano from Graphical Dream, we were also pleased to welcome:

Martine Fuxa from E-Commerce Mag, Laurent Calixte from Challenges, Julien Pompey from Echos, Corine Moriou from Entreprise, Robert Lafont from the Group Robert Lafont, Elodie Toustou from Le Monde éco, Olivier Levy from Blog E-Commerce, Anne-Françoise Rabaud from Chef d'entreprise Mag, Florence Duprat from BFM TV, Pascal Galinier from Le Monde, Carine Gouradiec from VSD, Andrea Graells from the AFP, Carine Guicheteau from Artisans Mag, Philippe Mabille from La Tribune, Isabelle Marsal from Madame Figaro, Guillaume Grallet  from Le Point, Daniel Rosenweg from Le Parisien Eco and Julien Chaumont from the DGCIS.

In addition to the pleasure of handing out the prizes and sharing an excellent meal, this kind of ceremony is also the occasion to get additional feedback from our users. Karine Gidouin from Ledressingbyines confided that she was truly touched and grateful that technical support has been such a big help to them on a daily basis. And their shop is only 3 months old! This proves that true value doesn't take years to be appreciated!

Avecpassion brought their experience to the table sharing, as in the past, that E-Commerce saved their business. Two years ago, their high street store represented two-thirds of their sales versus one-third for their online shop. Today, it's the other way around.

AlliancePaintball started out really small. They specialized in a niche sector and now their activity generates between 80 and 120K€/month (a very large majority of that from their site).

And as the old adage goes, a picture is worth a thousand words...

Want to be part of the fun? The Oxatis E-Commerce Academy is open to all Oxatis users. All you have to do is enter your site in the next E-Commerce Academy!

[Oxatis mechanic] Baby, you can drive my car!

Do you have a subject concerning e-commerce or the web that you want to share? You too can come and co-blog it here!

This post was written by Marc Heurtaut, Chief Technical Officer and co-founder of Oxatis. 

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If Oxatis were a car...
 
Warning: Any resemblance to a past or existing car, such as the Batmobile, for example, is entirely coincidental.  I also want to add that this post has not been sponsored in anyway by BMW, Aston Martin, Renault, Mercedes, Peugeot, Jaguar, or Audi. 

No motor vehicles have been harmed or mistreated for the drafting of this post. However, it's a good occasion to groove back to the Beatles. Off we go!

If Oxatis were a car, it would always be new, even though it's been on the road non-stop since July 2001. Maintenance on the Oxatis car would always be done with the engine running and it would never stop at the garage.  At  a cruising speed of 80 Km/h, the Oxatis car has already driven around the world about 148 times!
 
How many mechanics do you know that change the valves and transmission at full speed on the highway? 

Well, that's what our technical team does every day! 

Oxatis servers have been in production for more than 9 years. But unlike a car, Oxatis is not eligible for government scrapping incentives! However, our equipment has been replaced several times and our handling capacity has significantly evolved during this period.

In 9 years, we've never had to interrupt service for more than an hour, and only on a few very rare occasions that you can count on one hand. Oxatis fuel is the know-how developed in managing the architecture at the heart of our system. This expertise allows us to guarantee exceptional uptime, especially during sales and other high-volume periods with heavy loads. 

In comparison, developing and improving a  "platform" that doesn't have a lot of traffic or that only works on a single server is simple. Without many clients, a lot of other platforms aren't aware of the issues that Oxatis has to manage on a daily basis. There's no more improvising when you have several thousand clients, millions of pages generated every day, tens of millions of database requests and a constant server load! The Oxatis car is modular. It can accommodate a quasi-infinite number of passengers without ever slowing down or leaving them on the side of the road.

If Oxatis were a car, starting out in 2001 it would have been a small 2-wheel drive city car that over the years has become an all-wheel drive, four-door sedan with power steering, 7 airbags, multi-zone air-conditioning, ceramic ABS brakes, panoramic sunroof, amphibian with propellers, etc. that has been reconditioned nearly every kilometer of the way!
 
How many cars do you know that get better with age? 

The technical team has developed and put over 300 major updates into production these last 9 years. Today, the system offers an exceptional, but often neglected, wealth of functionality that would be too much to sum up here. Just within price management, we handle multi-pricing, discount grids on amount or quantity for customers or items, we offer an extremely complete engine allowing e-merchants to define special offers on items, brands, categories or a combination of the 3, the possibility to set up flash sales, associate discount coupons to promos, create percentage off discounts or fixed discounts according to amounts in the shopping cart, etc.

The technical team works under constant pressure and the platform benefits from daily improvements. We have developed extremely controlled mechanisms (regression, back-up, etc.) and deployment strategies.

Ensuring forward compatibility (making sure all existing functionalities are compatible with the new ones) is also a top priority.  At Oxatis, bugs are extremely rare - and I'm not the only one who'll tell you so. Our clients will tell you the same. Over the years, we've created and activated monitoring systems with real-time feedback. Any error found, whether it comes from the code or database environment, shows up in these tools that we analyze several times a day. This is also the case for the different software programs that interface with the Oxatis platform (over 30 different payment solutions, for example). In short, nothing is left to chance. For instance, when a payment interface is no longer responding, we've already contacted the technical department of the service provider to signal the problem before they were even aware of it!

If Oxatis were a car, its average fuel consumption would be less than it was in 2001 as well, even though its capacity has been multiplied by 20!
 
Even if we have more capacity today than 9 years ago, we have proportionally significantly reduced our ecological footprint by reducing the size of our equipment and our power consumption.  Our new equipment is even "greener" because we understand that it's our future and our planet's future that's at stake. 
 
If Oxatis were a car, it would also have a digital dashboard that adapts to each country!
 
Oxatis is available in 4 European countries. That means that all of the countries share the same code and the same database. In other words, we don't duplicate the platform for each country. That makes international development a permanent and exciting challenge!  Managing translations and the development of new functionalities in a constantly changing environment requires close collaboration between the technical team and each country manager. Our engineers have to address all the functional and technical issues involved in international development (local laws and regulations, interfacing with local payment methods, user friendliness, etc.), which demands a lot of energy. This work requires flawless organization that, in the end, benefits all of our clients, no matter what country they're in! 
 
2010 is full of technical challenges and I am completely confident that our team will be able to conquer them brilliantly and with a lot of imagination. 

So, don't be shy...come and visit us! Your car keys are waiting for you on the Oxatis platform.  You can count on us to teach you how to drive that car and to guide you through the maze of e-commerce.  Start your journey  today...filled with success and a promise of security. Baby, you can drive my car!

Illustration via

E-Commerce Academy Nominees - February 2010

And here we are again! Already at our 9th edition of the E-Commerce Academy! Sure to be full of the good kind of surprises that always pop up when we get the chance to meet the people we usually interact with on a virtual basis.

The jury got together last week to deliberate! Another intense, but extremely interesting and rewarding....(and amusing!), session.

So, without further ado...(drum roll please), I bring you the finalists for the 9th edition of the Oxatis E-Commerce Academy:

 Master Category:

• Les magiciens du feu
• Baotian France
• Alliance Paintball

Women Category:

• Santessentiels
• Bio et Glamour
• Avec Passion

Newbie Category:

• Le dressing by Inès
• PetitBoubi
• Art de la Gourmandise

General Category:

• Alcante
• Deco Cado
• Radicalle

E-Commerce Partner Category:

• Boitissimo
• SoeScalade
• Color del mundo

We'll see you all February 3rd for the awards ceremony!

And what does E-Commerce look like in Japan?

We tend to forget that we are a reflection of our habits and culture. What makes sense to us may seem absurd to other cultures. And vice-versa.

That's why it's often beneficial, rewarding and inspiring to take a look at what others are doing, especially those in far off places!

The JDN [French online journal] published a case study examining e-commerce in Japan by selecting the top ten merchant sites with the most visits, according to Comscore, and analyzing their results with the help of data provided by the Bureau Van Dijk - Electronic Publishing Services. 

The findings are a far cry from European norms in terms of concept, user-friendliness, design and use. Let's take a closer look at the number one e-merchant site in Japan:

• Rakuten is an online shopping center that sells everything from clothes to food to high tech items. It also provides travel and reservation services and houses an auction platform. The Rakuten site has a very large audience with 33.9 million unique visitors per month...in a country with a population of 127 million.  
  In Figures:
  Unique Visitors (September 2009): 33.9 million
  Rakuten Group 2008 Sales: 1.88 billion Euros
  Rakuten Group 2008 Profits: - 413 million Euros
  Employees: 4,874

And here's what the site looks like....

In its original version:

And in its English version:

Completely different!

By extension, this logic can be applied pretty much everywhere, including communications between European countries.

After all, you wouldn't talk to a German and a Spaniard the same way. You might even agree that you wouldn't talk to someone from London the same way you'd talk to someone from Edinburgh. That's something that deserves a bit of extra reflection.

In the meantime, itte kimasu. I'm off to visit e-commerce in Japan. Right from my chair, in front of my screen. If your curiosity has been peaked and you're anxious to see more, you can find the case study (in French) here.

Oxatis Certifies First Solution Centers in the UK!

Adding to an international network of over 200 E-Commerce Partners throughout Europe, Oxatis certifies it's first resellers in the UK! To continue with its ongoing policy of quality customer support, Oxatis recruits web professionals to serve as local contacts for customer needs.

Oxatis E-Commerce Partner Trainees Hard at Work

Back in the office after a two-day stint in Richmond, Oxatis UK Country Manager Tania Chamma is thrilled with the result. "After 2 days of intensive training, these partners are ready to hit the starting blocks! Need help building your Oxatis site? Call on one of our Partners today!"

The Oxatis model is unique in its market sector, providing customers with a do-it-yourself solution alongside a reseller network of local partners servicing customer needs.

This training session focuses on the technical aspects of building a full-on E-Commerce site and certifies these Solution Centers on the Oxatis platform. While training is centered on technical skills, Oxatis also provides these partners with the sales tools they need to get their message across. 

Tried and tested in France, where Oxatis was founded, this model has proven to be very efficient and appreciated by customers and partners alike. The UK is set to follow in Oxatis France's footsteps where 15 new Solution Centers are recruited every month.

A big thank you to PayPal for their hospitality and collaboration in this recruitment effort!

Paypal Offices, Whittaker House, Richmond, London

Oxatis.co.uk - Our Corporate Site

Something new is always happening at Oxatis!

Today, that something new is the launch of the Oxatis Corporate Site! The Oxatis Team and I are proud to present you with our latest creation:

Enjoy your visit while getting to know this new site!

If you want to see our Start&GO offer, dedicated to start-ups, small businesses, craftsmen, merchants and entrepreneurs, click here.

If you want to see our Open Enterprise open enterprise offer, dedicated to SMBs, click here.

Oxatis at the Business Startup Exhibition in London: Seminar on How to Start Selling Online in 24 Hours!

Last week, Oxatis held a seminar at Business Startup in London. Theme of the day: "Virtual Shops: Start Profiting in 24 Hours!".

Designed for start-ups and small businesses wanting to build their business online, this seminar guides you through the labyrinth of E-Commerce and takes you through the steps of opening up an online shop. 

You weren't able to attend? You wanted to take a second look at the main ideas presented at the seminar? It's as good as done!

Happy reading :)

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them by clicking on Comments below. We'll get back to you as soon as we can!

Virtual Shops : Start Profiting In 24 Hours

View more presentations from Oxatis.

A little something to dream about ... the future of commerce according to Cisco

Cisco presents the future of commerce.

This technology might not be in stores or online tomorrow, but it gives you an idea of what E-Commerce could become in the not so distant future.

49 seconds of reverie:

Of course, your dream may not be be the same as this one. But at Oxatis, ours is to propose solutions adapted to all of those dreams out there.

If a customer leaves the shopping cart, are they lost forever?

Apparently not! According to a McAfee (specialists in Internet security) study in September 2009, a large percentage of Internet buyers that abandon their shopping cart during the purchasing act come back days later to complete the purchase, and most of those buyers come back within 2 days.

McAfee’s study found that 65% of all shoppers wait a day or more to complete a purchase, and the average delay is 33 hours and 54 minutes.

That's some good news for those who see the glass half full, and leaves some room for improvement for those who are interested in winning over the 35% that are left!

Illustration via

[Oxatis on Tour] London, E-Commerce Expo, October 20-21

"In 2009, e-retail is forecast to grow by 13.3%, despite overall retail growth shrinking by £1.7bn. The channel is continuing to benefit from more internet users, more shoppers and more transactions taking place online."

Since yesterday, Tuesday 20th October, you can come and meet the Oxatis Sales Force at the E-Commerce Expo in London. 

Are you in London too? Come over and say hello, we would be pleased to show you an E-Commerce platform designed to help SMBs sell successfully online without any technical skills. Oxatis! 

Rendez-vous at stand 236 :-)