Choosing your e-commerce Web host: No child’s play!
Selecting an e-commerce web host is all about making smart and informed decisions.

Your e-commerce site is the lifeline of your business. It’s what sets the cash registers ticking and revenues rolling in. Downtime issues, slow pages and poor bandwidth can literally eat into your profit margins. Time to think - are you with the right web host provider?

Assessing your needs
As a business owner there are certain things you need to take stock of before even starting the hunt for an e-commerce web host. You need to know what you’re looking for in a web host provider. If you’re unsure on what to ask, here’s a primer:

• Disk space: One of the most crucial requirements, the amount of disc space you have will determine the volume of files you can upload on your site.
• Bandwidth: This can literally make or break your e-commerce business as low bandwidth is the cause for slow pages and downtime issues.
• Email account: Does your e-commerce web host provide you free access to an unlimited number of email accounts? This is critical because not only will it save you big bucks, you’ll also be able to delegate email accounts to employees.
• FTP ability: This is absolutely crucial for e-commerce purposes. FTP guarantees an acceptable standard of transmitting files. Following FTP will therefore ensure that your trading partner gets to receive and interpret transmitted files automatically without any need for intervention.
• Shopping cart: It’s really amazing how many e-commerce business owners neglect the importance of a suitable shopping cart. While most entrepreneurs will have a basic shopping cart installed in their websites, what’s not normally known is that the shopping cart itself needs to be search engine friendly. Else traffic is bound to dwindle.
• Technical support: This is vital because most ecommerce web host providers will not have a sound support system. It’s important to choose a provider that is able to provide you with assistance in a prompt, accurate and timely manner.

Watch out for the ugly truth: downtime
Downtime issues can jeopardize any well meaning e-commerce business. Imagine if your customers faced downtime just when they were about to purchase something? Not only will you lose them forever, you also risk turning back future customers! Scary thought, isn’t it? Imagine the damage word-of-mouth can do in such a case! Be sure to check on the guarantee provided by your web host provider regarding uptime. You also need to be sure about the kind of technical support provided by your e-commerce web host to make sure they help you out when your site goes down. Sometimes it may also be necessary to take your site down temporarily for maintenance issues. Your provider needs to have a suitable option for this too.

Price shouldn’t be your last consideration
Quality does come at a price and it’s no different when it comes to choosing a suitable web host provider. It is much better to pay a little extra in terms of fees than having to shell out much more in future – either because of site maintenance, downtime or poor performance.