Ecommerce Web Hosting: How Different is it from Normal Website Hosting?

Overview
Today, it is the e-age and most of the money transactions take place over the internet. Ecommerce is one of the most popular concepts that have emerged out in the last few years. People buy everything right from a cell phone, digital items, music CDs, T-shirts, shoes, down to food items and furniture over the internet. As such, the importance of online stores has increased drastically over time. When the discussion boils down to ecommerce web hosting, there are many differences between normal personal web hosting or shared web hosting and ecommerce web hosting.

Top 5 Requirements of Ecommerce Web Hosting
Sure thing, all the usual requirements of hosting a common site do apply to the ecommerce websites, but there are certain special requirements of ecommerce web hosting. Now, let us take a look at the top 5 one by one.

1. First of all, ecommerce websites require very high levels of security due to the sheet fact that transactions of hundreds and thousands of dollars take place on a daily basis. Therefore, even a small mistake can turn out to be fatal. Hence, very high level of security and reliability of the eCommerce hosting provider are the most important aspects. However, there’s more to it, as merely security issues are not the only deal that you need to worry about.

2. Next to security, maximum uptime guarantee is another very crucial aspect of eCommerce web hosting. You’ll find many amazing ecommerce web hosting packages in the market loaded with top notch features, but at the end of the day, if your host fails to ensure high uptime, it may be devastating for your online business. Remember, almost all the web hosting agencies promise 99.9% uptime guarantee initially, but the best ecommerce hosting providers ensure minimum of 99.8% uptime guarantee at all costs. Above all, during downtime, the technical team of your host must be capable enough to fix the issue in minutes and get your online store back up-and-running quickly. Longer downtimes (even if they’re occasional) can be quite annoying for customers and you can be rest assured that the customers who’ve seen ugly messages like “this site is down for maintenance” or “error establishing database connectivity” will never bother to re-visit your site ever again.

3. Go Dedicated: If you’re looking for the best ecommerce web hosting, you must never ever think about hosting your site on a common web server, using a shared IP. Always take a dedicated IP, and ensure that your website is hosted in a private isolated web space, which is least likely to be affected by any other website even during extreme cases. This will ensure that your sales don’t get affected by stupid viruses and malware spreading on the common websites and blogs.

4. Integration with ecommerce apps: Most of the good ecommerce hosts offer PayPal integration, Google checkout, and payment gateway for all the major credit/debit cards like Mastercard, Visa, and Maestro. But, remember American Express is not supported by all the ecommerce packages by default. Therefore, if you want to offer payment option through American Express, you must check up with your host to ensure that the package supports this feature. Another word of caution here though, would be that your ecommerce host may do the basic $1 testing with all the payment gateways and give you a thumbs-up. But, it is your duty to ensure everything is indeed flawless before the site goes live. So, don’t be afraid to take pains in thoroughly testing that the transactions are completely secure, and are verified by agencies like VeriSign Secure.

5. Last but definitely not the least – any ecommerce website is incomplete without the necessary tools like shopping carts (look for all possible carts – OsCommerce, Zen etc), but if you pay unnecessarily to the web developers for setting-up shopping carts, it is sheer waste of time and money, because hundreds of one-click installation scripts are available in the market. Therefore, you must ensure that your ecommerce hosting provider also gives you goodies like one-click installation scripts for shopping carts, site analytics, real time traffic monitoring, and some free web promotions like free Google AdWords coupon worth $50-$100, MIVA and Yahoo! advertising credit and free search engine and directory submission. This will not only save a considerable amount of money, but also help you in getting kick-started with the promotion and marketing of your website right away. But, of course the free goodies should not be considered before the above-mentioned 4 points.

Cheap eCommerce Hosting versus Reliable eCommerce Hosting
Of course nobody wants to spend excessive money on web hosting subscription, but looking for just a cheap eCommerce hosting may turn out to be quite disastrous. Remember, you’re planning to make lot of money, through your ecommerce website/online store and few extra dollars paid as hosting charges won’t pinch your pocket as much as few minutes of downtime would. In any case, a reliable ecommerce host is what you should ideally look for. Having ensured the reliability you can definitely look out for all possible options and then pick the cheapest one amongst them.

Top 3 Mistakes Related to eCommerce Web Hosting
1. Lack of Specialization: Whenever you plan to host an ecommerce website, you must be clear about what you’re trying to do. If you’re selling things, then don’t confuse the customers as though you’re simply offering useful information. Place the “Buy Now” buttons right below the product and show all relevant details. Sometimes, people unnecessarily try to confuse the customers by not making it clear that they’re indeed selling something. As a result, customers simply take information from the site and then buy the same product on e-Bay, Amazon or any other major online store. On the other hand, people don’t keep the most popular products in the respective category and in turn the customers decide to visit a different store, when they don’t find even the most common products.

2. Apparently Low Levels of Security: As mentioned earlier, lower security levels can be extremely dangerous in multiple ways. First of all, your site may be vulnerable to attacks from hackers and even it is likely to get affected pretty easily by various viruses and malware.  But, right now we’re discussing about the level of security that your customers feel when they visit your store. Remember, the very moment your customer feels a bit awkward or insecure, he/she’ll simply decide against proceeding with the check out.

More often than not, poor design and lack of essential stuff like Privacy Policy on homepage force the visitors away from the site, despite all the goodness of the site. Above all, your visitors don’t want to have a hard time merely locating the products they’re interested in. Therefore, if you’re using any of the automated scripts provided by your ecommerce host, you must ensure that customers can easily navigate and locate a particular product within few seconds. Don’t keep the search option just for the heck of it; ensure that it displays only relevant results and gives advanced filters to the customers as well.

3. The next big mistake committed by the inexperienced website owners is Poor Marketing. In case you’re not aware the fact that over 108 million distinct web sites exist over the internet (as per 2007 Netcraft Web Server Survey), you must understand that the level of competition is extremely high and nobody will bother to locate your site on their own.

Therefore, it is quite possible that you may be trying to promote and market your website with the help of free goodies offered by your ecommerce web host, but it is never going to be enough. You may get $50 free Google AdWords credit, but it would be in your hands to successfully continue this campaign and maintain profitability in your business. There’s no point in stopping your campaign after exhausting those free $50 credits, because without appropriate promotion and adequate marketing of your website it is as good as a pile of trash.

Selecting the best ecommerce web hosting
So, you must be keen to know how to select the best ecommerce web hosting provider, aren’t you? Well, as you must have figured out, determining the best ecommerce web host greatly depends upon various factors such as reliability, cost, features offered, uptime guarantee, free goodies and experience in the industry.

Basically, if you keep all the considerations in mind, and don’t repeat these common mistakes, the chances are high that you may be able to establish a profitable online business. However, at any point of time, you must be prepared with a Plan-B – whether it be in case of security issues, longer downtimes, or low level of sales for unusually longer times. And, definitely you must never try to save on hosting charges as a trade-off for even the smallest feature.