E-commerce Hosting Information
Each host providing e-commerce hosting has an auto installer that easily installs one or more of the most supported, most popular e-commerce packages on your hosted account. Those shopping carts are: OsCommerce, ZenCart, CubeCart, and AgoraCart. All of these e-commerce solutions have a variety of skins, templates, or themes available for low cost or no cost.
Generally, to accept credit cards, you can use PayPal instead of getting a merchant account with your bank or through an online merchant account provider. This can save you gateway fees and a lot of other costs, as well as a lot of time. If you don’t want to use PayPal to accept cards, you can use another payment gateway, but you will usually need two other elements to complete the package: a dedicated IP address and a SSL certificate — or a shared certificate.
For an additional, monthly fee, or a low yearly fee (usually $24 - $40 a year), most hosts will provide you with a dedicated IP address. You will also need, should you decide not to use PayPal, a SSL (secure socket layer) certificate to protect your customers’ financial information. Many hosts offer a shared certificate, but some do not. The cost for a SSL certificate ranges from about $20.00 to hundreds of dollars per year. Your host might have deals through their providers, or they may offer a shared certificate, free.
Since all hosts are somewhat different with respect to their plans and packages, it’s vital to ask questions before you commit with a host. Here’s some questions to add to your own:
What solutions do you offer for e-commerce?
Do you have a shared SSL certificate?
If no, can you recommend a low cost certificate provider?
Does my account have a dedicated IP address, if not, what is the cost for a dedicated IP address?
Do you have any partnerships with ecommerce related services? What are they?
Can you provide links to shops you currently host?
If my store gets really popular, what is the cost of additional bandwidth per GB per month?
