E-commerce hosting
E-commerce hosting is a type of website hosting platform used for the need of electronic commerce and online retail business. The difference between e-commerce hosting that is managed and standard hosting is in features and applications you need to run an electronic commerce website. Such functionalities include:
- Online storefront (payment processing, shipping, taxes);
- Shopping cart software;
- Secure Sockets Layer (SSL);
- Database support.
The main idea of ecommerce website hosting is to provide manufacturers, retailers and entrepreneurs with the tools and services required to conduct an ecommerce business (starting from a set-up and continuing with management).
Many hosting management companies offer ecommerce hosting as an option for your business, providing additional features as email support, analytics services, SEO services, up-site warranty etc.
How to find the right provider for E-commerce Hosting?
For an owner of a small business, it is often quite difficult to get an understanding of pros and cons of each type of a web hosting and to choose the right hosting provider (ideally matched for price and provided services). It usually requires not just to compare prices and memory space, but also to get the idea of other services, features and functionalities you need for your business (as well as those you need not). Only after deep analysis, you can make a choice.
The first thing you should pay attention to is whether the provider you consider as your best match offers packages for small businesses. Such companies are usually more experienced in terms of what small and middle-sized businesses really need and they can offer you good options on how to upgrade your package on a later stage, with no need to debug the entire website again.
When you get deeper into the question, you will find out there are plenty of unknown terms, standards and peculiarities. Let us look on the main terms you may find:
- Managed E-commerce hosting (is a hosting managed by a hosting provider);
- Dedicated E-commerce hosting (your website is the only one on the server);
- Shared E-commerce hosting (you share the server with other businesses);
- VPS E-commerce hosting (a dedicated server within a shared virtual hosting environment);
- Cloud E-commerce hosting (hosting services provided via multiple connected servers that comprise a cloud).
All the mentioned above, are different hosting types. The main differences between all of them are control, price and performance.
NB: We have already discussed the differences and peculiarities of each of hosting types in our material “Which hosting services should I use?”.
Once you have decided on a hosting type you need to consider the in-house expertise. The options here are either to have the managed hosting plan or to manage it yourself.
What does all this mean for your E-commerce hosting?
When you choose a managed hosting for your business – your main responsibility is to provide content and be responsible for business processes (purchase, delivery, hiring, etc.) and your hosting provider is in charge of a website (and accordingly the server) set-up, bug fixing, backups, security issues, email system, up-site, etc. However, such hosting is usually more expensive.
If you decide to choose self-management of your server, be ready to get just a management software. You will be responsible for installation of a web-server, additional features and applications, backups, security issues etc. Such option will cost you less money; however, it is most likely you will need to hire additional staff (i.e. developers) to help you manage all of the above.
Another issue we would like to pay special attention to is payment systems. As we are discussing best ecommerce solutions, you need to decide on which application for a cart and methods for online payments you will have.
For a home-based small business, there is probably no need to get into technical specifications and know-hows. The easiest solution will be enough. Nevertheless, if you have a mid-sized business or plan to grow – it would be necessary to factor PCI-compliance. On a managed hosting, you will be offered PCI DDS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) by default.
To conclude
E-commerce hosting is a hosting for your ecommerce business. There are several hosting types, depending on a level of control, performance, price and number of built-in features. All the hosting types can be managed by a hosting provider or you can manage each of them yourself. The most important features to pay attention to are:
- Payment systems;
- Security systems;
- Shopping cart software;
- SEO services;
- Database support;
- Email software;
- Analytics opportunities.
