The rapid growth of Russian internet penetration in the late 1990s created an opportunity for online retail. The Ozon.ru portal was set up to offer an unparalleled range of products, making the online purchasing experience simple, secure and available to the greatest possible number of customers. Achieving this required the expertise to develop a portal that would meet internet-wary customers’ demands in terms of usability and navigation. Another obstacle to be overcome was the absence of a secure means to authorize and process payments.
The Russian financial crisis of 1998 led to particularly challenging circumstances that affected Ozon’s funding. Indeed, at times available cash had to be measured in days, not months. In this context, the key challenge was to bring a feature-rich and scalable product to the market in the shortest possible time while keeping cash burn to a minimum.
Ozon.ru was to Russia’s first major online retailer, so our first task was to develop an internet payment gateway, ASSIST, providing a range of electronic payment options. Based on Microsoft technologies, the ASSIST system accepts all major credit cards and e-currency used in Russia within a single integrated interface.
The Ozon.ru portal itself is run using a Reksoft proprietary platform for advanced web content management, e-commerce and personalization. Using this and ASSIST rather than third-party systems, we enjoyed a much greater degree of flexibility in setting up the portal.
Moreover, we were able to develop technical innovations that predated even those of Ozon.ru’s American rival, Amazon.com. One example is the cross-recommendation engine that allows customers ordering a product to see related items purchased by previous buyers.
Since our creation of Ozon.ru in 1998, the site has risen to become the most successful e-commerce portal in Russia and the CIS region. Reksoft’s flexible approach enabled it to overcome funding difficulties posed by a national financial crisis. Just a year after being set up, Ozon.ru was already self-funded and turning a profit.
Our flexible and scalable architecture enabled Ozon.ru to smoothly adapt to rapid growth. Today, the portal boasts 3 million registered users, and turnover rose by 78% between 2007 and 2008, to $75m. ASSIST, which we developed as an enabler for this project, is now the leading online payment platform in Russia.
Ozon.ru’s goal has always been to establish an IT infrastructure sufficient to meet customers’ expectations for quick delivery of information about our goods and services. The Reksoft team used its technical expertise to make that happen.
Jason Downes
General Director
RU.NET Holdings
