CartIt Commerce System History

1995
The CartIt Commerce System was created in 1995 as a product of a Web Design firm lead by myself. Back then, the name was PICart and available only to clients. High demand for the software lead to the morphing of the Web Design firm into a software company – CartIt Corporation and CartIt were born in 1996.

When I created my first shopping cart system, web pages were all gray (there were no color options), everything was aligned left (the center HTML tag had not been invented yet), and I had never seen a Shopping Cart.

1996-2000
CartIt was one of the top e-commerce software packages on the web. CartIt was a launch pad for many of the top commerce web sites today, and not just in e-commerce. Companies such as Intel and Hewlett Packard used CartIt for there private intranets for internal purchasing.

What launched CartIt into superstardom then was CommerceBuddy, a way to synchronize the web data with the desktop, pretty simple really. Well, so it seems, no one had done it yet, CartIt was the first commercial commerce application to do it. Today, with XML on the tip of every webmasters tongue, it seems rather mundane.

2001
Complete and total business burnout caused by 162 hour work weeks for 4 years, I checked out of CartIt and moved primarily into consulting.

I want to take a moment here to thank everyone that purchased and supported CartIt in those days! Yes it was profitable, but that is not what I focus on here. The experience, the insight, and the relationships, it was a wonderful educational experience. Speaking to thousands of merchants gave me insight into e-business that has made me an extremely knowledgeable consultant.

2005
CartIt is free software and is used by 13,924 users in 112 countries! As for myself, I am a hired gun in Web Analytics, e-commerce, and automation …and the custom application development to accomplish the aforementioned tasks. Simply put, I am in the business of identifying and solving e-problems. I also have a few of my own e-commerce projects going.

2006+
I suspect CartIt will still be free and kicking!

I suppose I could make CartIt commercial again, that options is always open. But don’t hold your breath. CartIt, to me, is filled with amazing memories of relationships, growth, the dot com boom, profit – but once you experience business burnout, whatever caused it, will always make you cringe a little when you look at it again.

I will be doing more of what I am doing now. However, I plan to write on topics close to me ala Blog – that being “The Management and Operation of an E-business”, with some damn good advice on how to do it right. Most of this advice will be targeted to the small e-business and start-ups.

Get CartIt, it’s still strong for the small business! Good luck with your e-commerce ventures.