Shopping Cart Hosting FAQs
Shopping cart is the main purpose by more and more websites. Either you're operating a physical store or doing retailer, a website will always expand your business opportunity. You might have tried to search for a perfect shopping cart hosting plan. However, there's not a web hosting plan dedicated for shopping cart purpose. Hosting group can only optimize their hosting server as much as they can to work with those scripts. We have compiled a list of shopping cart hosting FAQs based our practice and user feedbacks.
What's shopping cart hosting?
Shopping cart hosting is a server service where you can install various cart softwares on your website. It's always provided under shared hosting plans.
How hard it is to install a shopping cart site?
Not really, most popular shopping cart softwares can be installed via one click installer in hosting control panel such as simplescripts, softaculous etc. These installers have great scripts library and updated frequently for new softwares.
Is windows server better for shopping cart management?
No. Actually most shopping cart softwares are developped under linux server environment via php/mysql technologies. Only few popular cart softwares programmed on windows server. Also, since over 80% users prefer to use linux, you get more advice on how to optimize your cart site.
What's the best shopping cart software?
There're over 100 shopping cart softwares on the web and new solutions being provided every few periods. You can check out the ecommerce hosting page for some most popular choice. Basically, if you prefer to windows solution, nopcommerce is by far the best one. If you need powerful enterprise solution on linux platform, magento is perfect one.
What're some rules in selecting a perfect shopping cart hosting plan?
Every hosting providers announce to be compatible with various shopping cart service. However it's hard to find a service where you can manage your store smoothly. Check the following when you're looking for a decent shopping cart hosting plan.
- Server/network specs. Hosting servers must be setup by up to date hardware configurations and software updates. DELL server is a must with RAID 10 disk array. SSD is best choice but not a must because of pricing. At least two data centers in the behind for guaranteed network availability. Generally, a small hosting group can not provide these facilities so you can filter a lot of providers at the beginning.
- Company Overall reputation. Always check how people talk about the company on internet and learn both advantages and weakness. If all you see is bad experience and various downtime complaints then you should avoid such service.
- Risk free opportunity. Check if you get opportunity to try out the service before you pay. In this way you can check side by side to learn if it will work with your requirements. Not too many hosting providers can offer this opportunity because they are not so confident to keep your business. Arvixe can offer up to 30 days try out service for one cent. Such offer smartly filtered those people who need completely free service and spammers, just people who really need long term service will sign up.
- Support availability. Support is top concern by most people nowadays because you always want someone to be available when you seek for help. Especially when you can't login to website or your hosting server is not connecting, a responsive support assistant is quite importnat.
Where do I get merchant account?
Merchant account is normally provided by your bank who can accept online transactions. Some shopping cart service also provide merchant account service with some fees. You can accept payment fastly by their solution.
Is there any fee included for online transaction?
Yes, it's always billed for every online transaction. The fees vary based different merchant service. You have to consult to the actual service provider.
What if I need to accept different currencies?
You just need a proper shopping cart software which is configured to deal with different currencies. Many softwares have bultin support for multiple currencies and can be scalable by new modules or plugins. Some leading shopping cart softwares like magento, opencart and oscommerce etc are all multi currencies compatible.
Your shopping cart is your online business center. You should take care of it seriously like your baby because it brings you profit. Find the right cart software and hosting plan to give it a nice home.
