Back in 1995 the very first Website editors were being launched and e-Commerce was still a foreign word to all but a select few.

Solutions for non-programmers

There were no e-Commerce solutions for non-programmers available and companies were paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to create the world's first online shops. Only to go broke when discovering that back then very few customers were actually using the Internet to buy something.

A problem Steffan and Michael wanted to solve. They came up with the idea to create a more sophisticated do-it yourself e-Commerce solution, a solution which would not only create a website, but which would also add all the e-Commerce functionality a shop needs. 

Easy and affordable

Together they wanted to create a shopping cart software solution which would make it easy and affordable for shop owners to join e-Commerce at a low cost.

The first version of ShopFactory was released in 1996 — initially called ShopWizard.  A name we later had to change, when an English company registered the internet Address ShopWizard.com — which we foolishly had not done due to the high costs involved.

One of the many lessons we learned during more than a decade of ShopFactory development.

Extremely advanced

ShopFactory was an extremely advanced solution, right from the word go. Not only was it the world’s first Shop-in-a-Box solution, it was even capable of creating shops in three dimensions! Although the 3D capabilities were until 1999 limited to a long hallway displaying the products on the walls — similar to an art gallery.

The 3D capabilities were also behind the naming of the company. Loosely translated 3D3 or 3Dcubed means especially great 3D.  We dropped these functions in 2000 due to lack of interest among merchants, and focused solely on creating better and better e-Commerce solutions.

Famous ease of use

The famous ease of use of ShopFactory was established from the very beginning. ShopFactory was targeted at shop owners — so it had to be designed to be used by them. Steffan Klein designed the first version of ShopFactory with this in mind — and programmers were then employed to turn this design into reality.

So unlike most other solutions ShopFactory wasn’t being designed by programmers but by computer users.  Shop owners should not have to know anything about the Internet, about website development or, worst of all, about programming. This has been our catchcry right from the word go.

We always wanted anyone to be able to create Internet shops with our solutions.

Of course e-Commerce has changed a lot since 1995.

Developed for more than 12 years

Today e-Commerce is a part of life. The ongoing flow of feedback from ShopFactory users led to continuous improvements and helped us ensure that ShopFactory maintained its position in front of e-Commerce development — now for more than 13 years.

Many world firsts and a large number of awards won over the years are a testimony to our dedication to making e-Commerce fast and easy for our customers — and for their customers.

We were the first to create a do-it yourself e-Commerce solution, the first to integrate client-side technology which is now being made popular by Google. We were the first to create a multi-lingual shop builder, and the first to allow merchants to automatically create three dimensional online shops using the VRML language.

Fraud protection

Another first is our patented fraud protection system, which protects client side e-Commerce solutions against fraud attempts by customers.

The results of our continuous development work and our dedication to creating class-leading solutions speak for themselves.

Today we count among our customers not just shop owners, but also many professional website developers, who have come to rely on the ease of use and speed of development provided by ShopFactory solutions.

Worldwide more than 229,000 shops have been created in 103 countries and in 35 languages.
Some of the biggest companies in the world are using websites created with ShopFactory and many of the smallest ones.

100 million shoppers a month

More than 100 million people visit ShopFactory shops every month — placing orders for more than $2.1 billion each year. An impressive result, which makes us one of the most successful e-Commerce solution providers in the world.

A success we owe to our customers. So after all these years of ShopFactory we are still dedicated to the aim we set ourselves at the very beginning:

To be successful by helping others succeed in their e-commerce ventures. Your profit is our challenge.

We hope we will be able to help you, too.