Ecommerce refers to business conducted over the internet. The term can encompass a number of transactions. Ecommerce is not just the purchase of goods and services over the internet. It can also refer to the transfer of funds, like when you complete banking transactions through your financial institution’s web site, and can also include trading information between organizations. Most ecommerce that takes place in the context of web hosting, however, involves transferring money over the internet for goods or services. EBay and Amazon are two of the most popular websites that deal with this kind of online business.
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Ecommerce websites come in all sizes. Every time you go to a website for a soap company and order a few bars, you’re participating in ecommerce. When you go to a grocery store’s website and set up a home delivery, that too is ecommerce. The point is the site doesn’t have to be big and famous to count!
If you’re the creator of an ecommerce website rather than the purchaser of services, you will need to look for certain things when choosing a web host that apply specifically to businesses.
- One of your main concerns should be how you reach out to and interact with customers. A well designed web site will help you with this, but what about after you’ve captured the person’s attention but haven’t yet made a sale? Organization and ease are the things that will help you most here. If you aren’t well versed with HTML or CSS, you should look into a what you see is what you get (WYSIWYG) editor for websites, such as FrontPage or Dreamweaver. The easy to use commands will help you make changes, and will allow you to see those changes as they would look on your actual website. These editors provide ease for you as well as the customer. For you because of their easy design features, and for the customer because it allows you to incorporate scripts that create email order forms, comment boards, and other similar tools.
- Security is very crucial. We all know to be careful when making purchases over the internet. Identity theft is a real concern these days, and people are consequently keeping their information close to their chests. If you want to create a website that offers some form of ecommerce, you will want to keep this in mind. We can break security down into several main concerns. The first concern is privacy. How can you assure the customer that their information will remain private? A script installation program like Fantastico supports a module that allows you to create secure shopping carts. If you opt to submit to their verification process, you gain the ability to put their seal of safety on all your sites. Encryption and authentication are other common ways to up the security of online transactions. Encryption turns information written in plain text in to a cipher only readable by those in possession of the proper key. Authentication is done using online certificates and ensures that the messages being sent are coming from the right user. Log in screens that ask you to enter a string of characters are a form of authentication. Many ecommerce web hosting providers catering especially to ecommerce websites offer these services. Some have built in shopping carts. Others offer digital certificates. All of these things help keep sensitive information like credit card numbers safe from theft. Don’t forget to protect the destination computer, too. Firewalls, virus scans, and file backups will all help prevent a disaster. You can even purchase your own digital certificate, but this can be very pricey. For small businesses especially, the web host’s built in certificate should suffice. Be certain to choose a reputable web host if you go this route, because the host is the one managing the security aspects of your transactions. If you are interested in purchasing your own certificate, you will have to do it through a certificate issuing authority and it can be quite expensive. However, you can display your certificate on your websites and it may increase customer confidence and therefore, sales.
Ecommerce is a complicated and ever evolving topic, but web hosting can help you start, especially if your business is small. A typical web hosting package will include a shopping cart, a template for a product catalogue, and a way to process credit card transactions through the web host’s certificate. This can be done even through web hosting providers aimed at people on a budget, making your web hosting experience affordable and hopefully, lucrative. Begin offering your products and services to the World Wide Web now!
