"eCommerce Webhosting Guide"
ecommerce stands for electronic
commerce and is used in reference to any business that sells products or services
over the Internet. The term is usually used to describe the whole online process,
from the product selection to accepting payment.
When do you need an Ecommerce web hosting?
If you run such a business, you probably don't want your customers to send you
checks. A free web host is not enough to suit your needs either. Unless you have
enough resources to purchase and maintain an in-home server, an Ecommerce web
hosting service is what you need.
How to choose the best Ecommerce web host?
To make sure you get what you need from your host, here's a few things you should
take into consideration before deciding on an Ecommerce web hosting service:
Bandwidth
A good webhosting company should be able to offer you unlimited bandwidth. You'll also want to
find out what is the percentage used by existing demands, which should be less than
30% of the available bandwidth. The peak bandwidth should be less than 60 - 70%. If there are two many websites hosted on one server and the bandwidth is overused, you pages might load slower. It
would be a good idea to specify bandwidth utilization terms in the contract.
Proximity to Backbone
Another information you try to find out is how many hops
separate the web hosting provider from the Internet provider they connect to ( the
backbone). Each server or router the Internet traffic must go through is a hop. You
should choose an Ecommerce hosting provider with as few hops as possible. A large
number of hops can make your pages load slower and increases the probability for one of them to fail.
Server Setup
You should also check that your host is using high level hardware components,
preferably multi-processor servers.
Redundancy & Reliability
There's also the connectivity issues to consider. Your host should have
multi-homed Internet connections to reduce downtime risk. In case of downtime, your website will be unavailable. Your Ecommerce hosting provider should also have a back-up power supply onsite in case of a power failure. If the information is not available online, the only way to find out is to ask the provider directly.
Site Building & Ecommerce Tools
Most Ecommerce web hosting providers include site building software. The most
frequently used packages are ShopSite, by ICentral, SoftCart, by
Mercantec and Commerce Publisher, by iCat.
Security
The standard protocol for online transactions is SSL (Secure
Sockets Layer). A digital certificate is used to verify the seller's identity. The
most common certificates are VeriSign and
Thawte.
Payment Processing
A payment processing service mediates credit card transactions between an
Ecommerce business and a merchant account. The most frequently used processors are
Paypal, Worldpay, Cybercash, Segue Systems and ICVerify.
Back-End Integration
At some point, you might want to integrate data from your website directly into
your accounting database systems. The host should provide some data integration
assistance. Even if you don't find this important at first, you should ask about the
scalability your Ecommerce host offers.
Cost
The account setup should cost you between $50 and
$150. If your domain name is not registered, you will
probably have to pay another $10 for your host to have it
registered for you.
The following is a list of our recommended ecommerce webhosting providers with customer base trend numbers that are increasing:
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