Ecommerce, electronic commerce over the Internet, has increased significantly in the last several years. One reason is software programs and technical solutions that make building a website and hosting it online relatively simple. Another reason is the increased security of Internet transactions in recent years. The endless possibilities for ecommerce websites include selling digital products, physical products and services, and many more.

This article explores how you can join the thousands of people selling goods and services online including ecommerce hosting considerations, website features beneficial for ecommerce websites, and determining the correct shopping cart program for your website.

What is ecommerce hosting?

Ecommerce hosting supports your ecommerce website, making it available on the Internet and providing the functionality you need in order to run a successful online store or website. There are dozens of ecommerce website hosting solutions available. But for your website to be successful, your ecommerce hosting solution must include the following minimum elements for you to establish an ecommerce business: reliable website hosting, email accounts, databases, FTP for file transfers, a shopping cart program and a system for secure payment transactions.

In addition to creating an online presence, the ecommerce hosting provider must maintain that online presence. The quality of the servers, bandwidth, and network configuration of an ecommerce web hosting provider determine the data transmission times and reliable website availability vital to customer satisfaction. Ecommerce hosting must also provide a functional, user-friendly environment where you can monitor and adjust your website as needed.

Beneficial web hosting features for e-merchants

Since ecommerce websites are so different from other types of websites, certain features become more important when considering ecommerce web hosting providers.

Technical Support: For all websites, web hosting technical support is an important consideration. For ecommerce websites, the availability of knowledgeable technical support is crucial to maintaining your online presence and keeping your ecommerce business open and operating smoothly. With ongoing technical support available at all times for questions and monitoring, your ecommerce website will maintain availability and credibility.

Shopping Cart: All shopping carts share the same basic elements, but the individual features of the different types of carts vary greatly. Since this is such an important element of your ecommerce hosting solution, we will explore some features of the different types of shopping cart programs below.

Interactive elements: Features like blogging and live chat capability depend on the type of ecommerce website you have and the preferences of your particular audience. If you want to interact regularly with your website visitors using blogs and live chat, or you have plans to in the future, make sure your ecommerce web hosting plan supports these features.

Determining the right shopping cart program for your ecommerce business

Before you begin looking at the many shopping cart programs available in ecommerce web hosting plans, determine the features your ideal shopping cart should have based on your goals and personal preferences. For example, do you offer discounts for minimum purchases or would you like to suggest similar items at checkout? Perhaps you ship products from multiple vendors. Figure out the shopping cart capabilities you need in advance.

There are three main categories of shopping cart programs offered with ecommerce hosting solutions: open source shopping carts, proprietary shopping carts and custom shopping carts.

Open source shopping carts - For the best results, incorporate open source shopping carts while building your ecommerce website instead of adding it to a completed website.

• They are free and all code is available to modify as you wish.
• Great flexibility with the ability to customize the cart as needed.
• Requires some technical knowledge and time to implement the full capability of the open source system.

Proprietary shopping carts - A “pre-packaged” cart with different features. You choose the elements appropriate for your ecommerce website.

• You pay for the shopping cart package and you do not have access to the code or at the very least, you can only modify templates.
• The choices are already configured, just choose the one you want and install it.
• Easier to optimize than some open source shopping carts.
• No prior technical experience necessary.

Custom shopping carts - Designed and developed for your specific business.

• Can be expensive, but you own the code.
• Created according to your specifications and to your desired level of flexibility and technical ability.
• Your customers do not leave your website to process transactions.

Your shopping cart is the last step a customer takes in making a purchase on your ecommerce website. Make sure your shopping cart solution and ecommerce hosting solution provide the functionality and ease your customers expect.

Certified Hosting has unlimited ecommerce hosting solutions for your business

Certified Hosting unlimited ecommerce hosting is ideal for website owners interested in establishing an ecommerce website with all the necessary ecommerce hosting solutions and for those who already have an ecommerce site and would like to maximize online capability. Unlimited ecommerce web hosting includes unlimited domains, unlimited email addresses, unlimited bandwidth, and unlimited disk space.

With Certified Hosting’s fully redundant data centers and 24-7-365 technical support, your website is online 99.9% of the time. The many shopping cart options include both open source and proprietary options such as oscommerce hosting, cubecart hosting, buy safe hosting, zen cart hosting, magento hosting, ubercart hosting, agoracart hosting and nopcart hosting.

For more information about how Certified Hosting can help your ecommerce website succeed online, contact a Certified Hosting service representative today at 1-800-547-9995.