Ecommerce hosting is a relatively new term and has been coined to describe hosting that typically includes or offers to include an ecommerce cart, a content manager, a payment gateway system and a secure web server. A typical ecommerce hosting will either have all these included in the offer price or, might offer each of these features for additional payment. The bundling of these ecommerce features or availability thereof within the ecommerce hosting plan offered, is called ecommerce hosting.
Of late, server space retails at almost the price of peanuts (or even cheaper). This has resulted in cut-throat competition amongst ecommerce hosting retailers. While on the one hand this might appear to be good news to all those who are in the process of creating an Ecommerce web site solutions, in reality however, it has resulted in retailing of ecommerce hosting that is accompanied by little or no after-sales-service which is a critical component of any web hosting including ecommerce hosting. If the email server on your ecommerce hosting fails or God forbid, your ecommerce website itself has been compromised due to technical snags with the ecommerce hosting, then you should be able to call or email and receive service in 24 hours or less. While almost all ecommerce hosting services automatically acknowledge your request for technical support, very few actually attend to your request for support within the mandatory 24 hour period. Those that do often send you some canned answers that almost always fail to address your concern. In the meanwhile, you might not only have lost a few thousand dollars in revenue, you could have lost a few valuable customers as well.
How to recognize fly-by-night ecommerce hosting retailers?
For starters, I’d recommend you stay away from all hosting companies that are not based in developed countries (exception being Russia). The laws governing web hosting or ecommerce hosting in developing countries is very slack. These ecommerce hosting retailers therefore have no fear of the law and hence have little incentive to offer you quality services. Of course, that is not to say that all the ecommerce hosting retailers based in developing countries are bad. Indeed, some of the ecommerce hosting retailers based in developing countries are so good that they not only offer unbeatable plans at unbeatable prices, they also bundle excellent 24×7 technical support to go with it. But finding these companies by doing a mere search on the net would be a hit-and-miss opportunity.
The developed countries too have their fair share of bad apples. If an ecommerce hosting retailer’s website looks like a template or the information or ecommerce hosting plan details are skimpy, then its best to avoid these ecommerce hosting retailers. If the ecommerce business web hosting service plan has all the features we’ve mentioned and costs less than $15 a month, then it probably does not include technical support and so should be avoided. Also, the quality of the features being offered with each ecommerce hosting plan might probably be below standard.
It is important to realize that adequate bandwidth, 24 x 7 technical support, web server software, monitoring staff, ecommerce hosting hardware all cost money. While sharing the services and hardware with several customers does bring down the price, too much sharing (and therefore very low rates), brings down the quality of the Ecommerce web hosting services.
Talk to us. RetailBizMD is one of the few companies that have all the skills (small business consulting marketing, Ecommerce web development, small business consulting services, social media as a marketing tool, Retail Consulting Services, etc) required under one roof. We will be delighted to be a part of your success.
