eCommerce hosting refers to doing commerce, or business, online versus via a retail outlet. Doing business over the Internet requires a few web hosting components that may not be necessary if you were creating a website that does not require the exchange of money. A business website may require one or more of the following eCommerce features:
- Shopping Cart
- Merchant Account
- Payment Gateway
- Extra Web Space
- Extra Bandwidth
- SSL Certificate
- eCommerce Web Host
Therefore, if you are planning to do business online prior to building your website you will want to find a web hosting provider that can accommodate your eCommerce needs. These are just a few things you want to look for when choosing an eCommerce web host:
- Full e-commerce capability – Compatible with most shopping carts, payment gateways, merchant accounts, and product catalogs.
- Web Space – Be careful of “unlimited web space”, especially with shared hosting, read the fine print. VPS, semi-dedicated, and dedicated hosting usually provide much more web space.
- Bandwidth – The amount of traffic visiting your site determines how much “bandwidth” you use. Again, unlimited bandwidth does not necessarily mean unlimited.
- Security – A shared SSL certificate is helpful, but does the web host also offer private SSL certificates?
- Customer Service – Creating and managing a website can be frustrating with support so imagine trying it without a good support system. You can check with the Better Business Bureau and read web host reviews online for reports.
- Price – Free and cheap web hosts are great, and work well for many. Just make sure they have the scalability you need once your web site starts to get larger and have more traffic.
We would not recommend using a free web hosting provider if you are trying to build an eCommerce site. Many free web hosting companies require you to allow them to place ads on your site, only offer limited eCommerce hosting features, and do not have other web hosting services to offer you once your website outgrows the space and bandwidth you will need with a successful eCommerce website.
While some shared web hosting providers offer a few free eCommerce features within their cheap web hosting plans, it is important to realize that unless they offer more than shared hosting if your website outgrows your shared hosts allowable space or traffic, you may be forced to move your website to another web host that can accommodate the web space and bandwidth you need for a larger website that is getting a ton of traffic. Which of course, we hope all of you are able to achieve since that is the goal of every online business owner.
Depending how large your website is and how much traffic it gets determines what type of hosting you need. Starting from smallest to largest your web hosting options are – Free Web Hosting, Shared Hosting, Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting, Dedicated Hosting, then Managed Hosting (which is dedicated hosting that is managed by your web host). Here are a few web hosts we would recommend for eCommerce hosting in the following categories:
