When you are looking for a host for an ecommerce site you need to choose carefully. You want to make sure that you get the best possible host and you need to consider what features you need that will suit your needs.
Once you choose a host it may not be that easy to change, particularly if you have paid a years subscription and do not want to lose that money, so it is wise to pick very carefully to start with. Below are some that you may want to consider.
Use a Specific Ecommerce host
There are some web hosting companies that deal specifically with ecommerce site hosting or specific app hosting such as Magento. It is important to choose one of these rather than a general web host as they will have the features that you need for an ecommerce site. They will have all of the tools that you will need as well as the design elements needed to build a shop front and incorporate a payment system into your website.
Some sites may offer general and ecommerce options and it may be best to just go for one that only deals with ecommerce customers. All of their business will be geared up to deal with customers just like you therefore meaning that the service they provide as well as their customer services will be specifically set up and trained to help people just like you.
Support
It is really important to find out what sort customer support they provide. Ideally, you will want free support through multiple channels, but this may be unrealistic. Some sites may only provide email support which sometimes means that it will take a long time to get a reply if at all. Many people prefer to have the option of telephone support so that they can get a much quicker response to their problem.
If you think that you may have problems with setting up your website then support could be vital to you. Some sites will charge for support. This may put you off, but it is worth remembering that if you pay for it then it should be better quality. If the support is poor, then if your site goes down you may find it difficult to let the hosts know and could lose a lot of business while you are trying to get them to sort it out.
Tools
It is important to compare the different potential hosts and look at the tools they have for you to use to build your ecommerce website. Not only do you want those tools to allow you to do everything that you want but they need to be at a level that is right for you. If you know very little about web design or have never set up an ecommerce site before then you need tools that you will allow you to be able to do this easily.
You will need something simple that will allow you to provide a great design, which is easy for customers to use, which takes little expertise to do. Even if you have some experience you may prefer a site that offers a simple toolkit for you. However, you may prefer it to have more options so that you can be more creative and make changes to the design to really customise your site. It is so important that you find a host that can offer you specifically what you need.
Security
If you are running an ecommerce site then security is really important. You will need to show your customers that they can trust you and that their data will be safe. This means that you want a site that will protect your data when you are uploading the site, keep it safe from viruses, hackers and attacks and keep the merchant services safe as well.
This is extremely important and you will want to make sure that you find a host that you can trust so that you do not have to worry about these things threatening your business.
So there are many features that you need to consider when choosing your ecommerce site host. Make sure that you look carefully at the website of potential hosts and see what they can offer you and whether it is enough to meet your needs.
Then you need to look at reviews of the hosting companies as well to see what other people think of them. It is wise to look at a selection of review sites in case some are biased for some reason.
It is also good to get in touch with the customer services department so that you can get an idea of what they are like and whether they are likely to be helpful, if and when you need them.