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What is eCommerce?
Ecommerce, selling things online, is big business these days. The field is dominated by huge players like Amazon and Ebay. Every day, hundreds of new stores in every imaginable category open. It may seem like it’s all too complicated and too difficult, or that the competition is too fierce. But ecommerce is still a lucrative opportunity for new-comers. And it isn’t too difficult if you know what you’re doing.
Getting even the simplest site up and running can be a feat in itself, and this is all the more true if you are trying to run an ecommerce site. Here are some details you need to keep in mind when looking at hosting.
Shared Server and Ecommerce
On a shared server plan, you share computer resources, bandwidth, and (usually) an IP address with other customers on a single server. This is not an ideal situation for most ecommerce sites.
Online stores are highly dynamic. As compared to “regular” non-commercial blogs, they require a lot more scripting and more frequent database calls. They tend to have a lot more users (because customers are users) and they cannot usually cache as much content in static files.
All these things make ecommerce sites heavy users of a hosting plan’s resources. This is even more the case since ecommerce sites are only “valuable” if they are heavily trafficked. You might run a blog for just a handful of people to read, but you’re not setting up a store unless you think you can get a lot of people to shop at it.
A more specific technical issue has to do with shared IP addresses. If you are on a shared server plan, your IP address is shared with the others customers on the same account. This makes it impossible to use an SSL security certificate and run in HTTPS mode. This is usually the preferred way to do ecommerce, and is absolutely required if you are going to take any kind of credit card payments on your site.
You can get a dedicated IP address associated with your account even in a shared plan. This will be an additional expense on top of your hared hosting base fee. This will solve the IP problem, but not the larger issue of computing resources.
VPS Hosting and Ecommerce
If you are looking to build out a successful online store, it is going to need to be able to handle a lot of traffic, without any performance lag.
Along with the need for a dedicated IP address, the need for performance and speed indicates that the best option for a serious ecommerce site is a VPS hosting plan.
Security Certificates
As mentioned above, your ecommerce site is almost certainly going to need a security certificate.
It is possible to purchase these independently and associate your domain with it. However, it is much easier to deal with the integration if you purchase the certificate through your hosting company. This may cost a few dollars extra (not much), but it is a better option overall.
If you are looking at buying hosting to run an online store, check to see if the hosting company sells security certificates as well.
Ecommerce software and shopping carts
The biggest decision you have to look at is what software system you should use to run your ecommerce site.
Plugins to CMS
If you are planning to have a larger content-based site in addition to your store, the best option is probably to use an ecommerce plugin to a popular CMS like WordPress or Drupal.
For WordPress, the two most popular options are WP Ecommerce and Woo Commerce. For Drupal, the Drupal Commerce suite is probably the way to go.
Dedicated Ecommerce Solutions
If you are planning for your online store to be a standalone site, not a section of a larger content-based website, you may want to forgo the complexities of a content management system and use a dedicated ecommerce software platform.
One of the most popular ecommerce software packages is Magento, but there are many others, such as ZenCart.
Simple Shopping Carts
If you are only planning to sell a small number of products, with relatively few options, you can set up your store using a simple shopping cart solution. There are a handful of these types of programs, and they are usually available as free, one click installs from your web hosting control panel.
These low-powered solutions are okay if you don’t need advanced features like reporting, advanced tax calculation, and product options. If you are selling a few things as a side-line to your main business, this is fine. (For example, a consultant who also sells his own books.) However, if selling products is your primary business, you really need a more full-featured solution. Even if you don’t need all the power right away, it is much easier to grow into technology than to grow out of it. You don’t want to be dealing with a technology change later on, right when you are trying to expand your business offerings.
