Top e-Commerce Hosting Reviews
You know how people who just started their online business spent gobs of money on expensive, complicated eCommerce hosting solutions and e-commerce website designers? They think they have to over-compensate with extra money for their lack of business, product and marketing knowledge. The truth is, if you’re going to open an online imstore, there are many easy and affordable hosting providers you can use. Here are the best ecommerce hosting solutions we highly recommend based on years of research.
Before you decide on which hosting to use, you must decide between the two major e-commerce hosting types:
The Hosted Shopping Cart Solution, at the minimum will have these benefits built-in into their shopping cart system to allow you to:
- Create a store with easy-to-use tools.
- Use simple ecommerce wizard to add products.
- Accept credit, debit, and PayPal payments.
- Easily process and ship orders.
- Measure success with reporting capabilities.
If you want a hosted shopping cart, we highly recommend BigCommerce. They are best in its class. It is free to try their shopping cart.
| Type | Hosted eCommerce solution / shopping cart a.k.a all-in-one e-commerce package |
| Cost | from $25/month. Some even allow free trial with no credit card required |
| Skills Needed | No technical knowledge required |
| Pros | Faster to set up the shopping cart. Get storefront running within same day. |
| Cons | May cost more in long run |
The Self-hosted eCommerce option on the other hand will require you to choose a shopping cart software, create store design, install shipping and payment modules, install traffic/reporting analysis tools and much more. It can be a powerful option as you can choose the best ecommerce software tools to use. Self-hosted or this DIY option is especially excellent if you are technically inclined in building your online store.
If you want to go the self-hosted path, then based on our extensive research, the best hosting plan with one-click installer is definitely Hostgator. You can try Hostgator for almost free (pay only $0.01) using the special Hostgator coupon 2013: ECOMMERCEHOSTING. You can easily install Magento, ZenCart, oSCommerce, and other free open source shopping cart using Fantastico on Hostgator. You can also have other web applications installed for free including forums, blogs, guest book and much more.
| Type | Self-Hosted eCommerce package / shopping cart a.k.a DIY or open source e-commerce solution |
| Cost | from $6/month. Some (like Hostgator) allow trial with coupon code. Verified working coupon code: ECOMMERCEHOSTING. |
| Skills Needed | Some technical knowledge required to configure and integrate all components |
| Pros | Flexible installation. Cheaper if you have the technical know-how |
| Cons | May take extra time, money and skill to set up |
Mistakes in Choosing eCommerce Hosting
Warning: Ecommerce Hosting is a service that caters to anyone looking to create an e-commerce website. A usable e-commerce website is an online store where visitors actually buy your products or services. Good e-commerce hosting plans must include storefronts, product catalogs, shopping carts, merchant accounts, inventory management, fraud prevention and security. Not all web hosting plans are suitable and ready for e-commerce. The cheap self-hosted e-commerce services will require you to do a lot of configuration and careful system design to make all the components work and if you are not tech-savvy, we highly suggest you choose one of the above hosted services. Choosing the wrong hosting type can be detrimental to your business.
Online Sales are worth more than US$144 billion and more than £78bn in the UK. Isn’t it time you got your piece of the pie? With one of the above ecommerce solutions, you can create and publish a stand-alone Internet store or add one to your existing Web site in a matter of minutes. If you do not want to spend thousands of dollars on web design and shopping cart configuration, one of the top e-commerce solutions above is for you to start your online business quickly today.
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If you have no experience building a website, I recommend you go with Yahoo Merchant Solutions. If you have some experience with scripting and building your own website, then you can go with any cheap web hosts and setup your own shopping cart.