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Ecommerce Hosting Problems: The Most Important
E-Commerce Hosting Choices
Balancing The Good With The Bad
Running an e-commerce business is a fine balance. On one
side of the scales is no traffic, no business, and
therefore no profit. On the other side of the scales is
too much traffic, server overload, massive overheads,
and the end result is still no profit. The point in
between where the profit margin lies can be a very fine
line but if you get it right then the fine profit line
can yield excellent results. Managing this balancing act
is a job that entails covering every aspect of your site
and your business. As well as suppliers and customers
you must place a large emphasis on your website and your
host.
Why Hosting Should Be Considered Important
A host is important to every website because without one
there would be no website, only a website design. Yet so
many Webmasters that pay thousands for a site design,
hundreds for the proper shopping cart, and untold
amounts of money on marketing and advertising also take
their site into their own hands by opting for the
budget-hosting plan. It’s true that at less than $5 or
$6 per month it won’t directly break the bank if it is
the wrong choice but it is more than possible that
everything will run along smoothly while you have a
relatively quiet initiation into the world of
e-commerce.
The Worst Case Scenario
As soon as you start to receive traffic and the money is
rolling in your site experiences “technical
difficulties”. Customers can’t log onto your site and
take their money elsewhere – probably to your main
competitor. As soon as you ring your host in agitated
panic you realize that the $1 per minute phone call is
getting you nowhere. Eventually, after waiting five days
(with no website and no profit) the technical service
desk respond to your ticket to inform you that the
technical difficulties are due to the fact that you are
exceeding your traffic limit.
Reaching And Exceeding The Limits Of Your Unlimited
Account
You try to explain that you can’t possibly be exceeding
your traffic limit because your account entitles you to
unlimited traffic bandwidth, and point out that it says
so on the account features page. Having been directed to
the terms and conditions page following another five-day
wait you realize that, beyond all belief, there really
is a limit to your unlimited account.
Inability To Update Your Account
After another lengthy discussion on the $1 per minute
phone line you subsequently learn that you can’t update
your account because there are no accounts that allow
that amount of traffic. Eventually you decide to look
elsewhere for a host. This time you pay attention to all
the details, you consider the unlimited offers and
quickly discard the majority having found the actual
limit to the unlimited offer is far less than other
accounts offer.
This is a somewhat pessimistic view of the budget
hosting accounts that are available on the Internet but
all the factors could potentially happen to you if you
don’t take care in picking the right host; the kind of
host that can effectively look after your e-commerce
site requirements.
Overloaded Servers Means Lost Revenue
As an e-commerce business deciding on a host should be
one of your main priorities right after deciding what to
sell. Choose a host that doesn’t overload its servers.
Ring the support desk and ask how many sites will be
hosted on the server that you are hosted on. In an ideal
world the answer should be ten, or twenty at the most.
This is especially important for an e-commerce website.
Product catalogs are notorious for consuming vast areas
of space on a server hard drive so be sure that you have
enough room on yours.
The Features An E-Commerce Site Needs
Features are another aspect that you will undoubtedly
want to look at. Some hosting companies not only offer
the usual array of file managers and brief statistics
but it is also possible to get free shopping cart
software and other highly beneficial e-commerce tools.
Secure pages and a secure certificate offer excellent
incentive for your customers to trust your service and,
therefore, purchase from you. Generally e-commerce
specialist hosts also offer a payment gateway and even a
merchant account so you can tale online payments.
Allowing Room For Expansion
When you first start looking for a host it is important
to allow your site room for growth. You may not have any
visitors yet, which is unlikely if you have no host, but
hopefully this will change in the future. When it does
you really don’t want to find that you simply don’t have
the capabilities with your existing plan to cope with
it. At the very least you should find out how simple it
would be to upgrade to a better account if this does
happen.
Windows Or Linux
You are more likely to find a greater number of features
and scripts with Linux hosting because it is an open
source platform. There are a large number of developers
that have created excellent programs to do many of the
tasks that you need your website to do and they can be
easily and quickly installed onto your server.
Bandwidth And Disk Space Limitations
The most important numbers are essentially your disk
space and bandwidth. Disk space is the amount of space
on the host that your website is entitled to use.
Bandwidth is the amount of data that can be downloaded
by your visitor’s browsers on a monthly basis. Both can
be quite high with an e-commerce store. If you have a
large number of products in a product catalog then you
are likely to also have a large number of images. The
software you use and the scripts you run also take
chunks from both of these figures.
Support And Technical Support Levels
Support is crucial during times of need. You don’t want
to find yourself in a scenario whereby you are suffering
from some unexpected “technical difficulties” but can’t
get technical assistance. In these instances phone
support is usually the best option because it offers a
quicker solution than web based or email based support.
Ensure that the option you decide on is the option that
makes you happy and be aware that some budget accounts
do not offer free technical support as part of the
account. You may need to pay a fee or a high priced
premium rate number.
E-Commerce Hosting Conclusion
E-commerce hosting is quite different to other website
hosting. It has a different set of requirements with a
unique feature set. Hosting accounts that include
shopping cart, payment gateway, and merchant account
software is generally the best option. A good level of
support at reasonable costs as well as an acceptable
amount of bandwidth and disk space is also important.
Finally, your decision should come down to the one that
fits most closely with your budget. Don’t pay for more
than you will reasonably need but similarly ensure that
you have enough in the event that your website takes off
and you need more to fulfill your e-commerce site needs.
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