Choosing a Web Host for a simple E-Commerce setup

Introduction

If you are creating a web site with the intention of selling products there are a few things you might like to consider when choosing how you host the site. I have created a few sites for customers so would like to share my experiences and things to look out for here. If you are planning to tip your toe into the world of ecommerce - for example just sell a few things on the side you probably don't want to invest a lot in setup to begin with. Assuming you have discounted using auctions sites and you want your own website and shopping cart this guide will discuss some of the hosting options and things to think about.

What are my options?

Hosting a website your self

What? That sounds like a lot of hard work. Hosting your ecommerce store using your internet connection from home or the office is possible and can be a good way to learn. From personal experience I suggest you would need the following: -A computer that you are prepared to leave on 24hrs a day to "host" your web site.
-A Leased line or an SDSL connection which provided reliable connection to the internet. You can use a business broadband but be warned your download speed is normally much larger than your upload speed - which although you might have and superfast download speed, on the other hand when a user is trying to connect to your site from outside you are restricted by the upload speed. This can result in poor performance for your users. Also broadband (even business) isn't very reliable and google doesn't like unreliable websites....
-A static IP address on your xDSL/leased line.
-A router which allows you to accept inbound web connnections.
-Some kind of surge protector and UPS to protect the computer and router against power outages and other power problems and your home or office.
Belkin do home small office ups and surge protectors and so do APC:
APC Back-UPS ES 700VA 230V United Kingdom
and even the normally "big boys only" Leibert http://www.liebert.com/product_pages/Product.aspx?id=255&hz=60
-The willingness do setup the equipment and to get everything up and running yourself. This includes learning a bit about configuring webservers, routers and of course running the shop itself.
-The willingness to keep it secure and running all the time.
-Optional: An SSL Certificate to secure your users transations on your site (Think: HTTPS ) Although generally speaking you will be using a 3rd Party payment gateway for user's payments I still think an SSL certifcate when the user is accessing their account is good and you should have SSL certifcate if you access the shopping carts back end system.
That seems like a long list but it isn't actually that bad especially if you already have some knowledge of computers already. Setting it all up can be a good learning experience as you cover a lot of areas.
I have an article on hosting from home here so please take a look if you think this is a route you might like to take.

Shared Hosting

Shared hosting is the first rung on the ladder of outsourcing the hosting of your shopping cart website. Your shopping cart would be hosted on a webserver that it sat in a datacentre looked after 24hrs a day. That sounds better than trying to host from home. Well yes but there are some drawbacks - the first one being your are sharing the server hundreds of other peoples web sites. Depending on how busy the these other sites are your sites performance can be effected and not in a good way.
When considering shared hosdting the areas you need to think about are:

Compatibility

Is is compatible with my shopping cart colution. Your hosting solution needs to work with your shopping cart and meet the requirements. I am not just talking just about webspace but other technical requirements such as the actual server scripting language.
-Does it include a Server scripting language. Lanugages might be PHP, Perl or ASP.NET. Open Source (free) carts such as Magento, Prestashop openCart and OSCommerce all use PHP
-Database SQL Server. A SQL database is a requirement for the majority of shopping carts.
-Support SSL certificates. Website which require user registration such as stores really do need to be secured by SSL.

Features

-Does it have a useful control / management panel?
Can you manage your files through this control / management panel?
-Does it let you run cron jobs to automate backups?
-Does it let you manage your databases?
-Will the hosting company let me use / import my own SSL Certificate or do I have to buy one of the hosting company themselves? Sometimes hosts don't want you to buy a SSL certficate from a company like server tastic or rapidssl.com and use it with their hosting. They often prefer you to buy one from them. This all adds to the price. I prerer to buy my own from an issuer of my choice back it up somewhere safe and take it with me if iI need to change hosts.

Cost

Ah the bit that a lot of people concern themselves. Do I go cheap? Well in the early days of your store and if you are just testing the water then yes by all means cheap isn't bad. One word of warning though - if you are based in the UK cheap can often mean well - shite. Our North American cousins do get more for their money (Although the situation is changing). Okay no problem you say I will just sign up with a US webhost, before you do I must point out that idea might not be ideal. And here is why - if your customer base is in UK and Europe then you often find that you will rank higher in in google.co.uk if your web site is actually physically located in the U.K. I had trouble with a Cheap / shite UK host and switched to a server in the U.S. - Oh dear my site ranking for the most useful keywords in google went from the glorious money making pages 1 and 2 to somewhere in the pages that no one ever reads - you know the ones I mean, pages 3 and up. So when choosing a host pay attention to the bit where it says on their site "datacentre located in Florida or London or Stuttgart". Choose the datacentre location that suits where you reckon you will get most visiting customers from.

Service and Support

This is a key area but if you need assistance with you hosting then good service and support is a must. If your web store is actually going to bring money then you can't have it "down" or "off line" for very long - actually come to think of it, replace "very long" with "ever".
Can you get hold of anyone? If you can't thats a bad sign!
I had a time when I underestimated a sites popularity and ran out of bandwidth. That meant that my site stopped being shown and the frustrating apache "Bandwidth Exceeded" notice was displayed. It took two days to get hold of anyone to actually sort the problem and let me buy some more bandwidth and when they did they signed me up for way too much bandwidth than I had agreed to. The manager eventually apologised but it was too late I had jumped ship and switched hosts.
Check out some web hosting forums. A lot of them tout for business in the forums but there are some honest reviews in there to.

VPS Virtual Private Server

What is it?

A virtual private server is almost having your own dedicated server. You can put what you want on it so. The reason it is virtual is using modern techniques you can divide up a "real" server into multiple virtual servers and give each virtual server a piece of the resources. This is actually a very good solution and has become very popular.

Managed

With a managed virtual server the hosting company take care of the server for you. They install all of the bug fixing and patching, anti virus and backups of your data You just need to setup the shopping cart software you want to run on there (in some cases the hosting company will do that for you). Well that's the theory anyway.

Unmanaged

Normally the cheaper of the two options, unmanaged is a bit like hosting from home or in that they hostingcompany just give you are server and you look after it entirely. The only thing is you don't need to worry about keeping it switched on and on the internet. Patching, anti virus and backups are all your responsibilty. If something doesn't work that's down to you to resolve - the majority of web hosts won't help you with anything related to the running of your host with an unmanaged plan. This is a great option if you have some technical skills or if you are prepared to learn them - with your trusty friend google.

Pros of a Virtual Private Server

Someone else takes care of keeping the server up and on the internet. That is one big headache you don't have to have anymore. Compared to shared hosting the benefits are compatibility -with a VPS you can run pretty much anything you want - PHP Java. Shared hosting you can't. And performance, with a VPS you get dedicated chunk of resources for your server. That is something shared hosting doesn't give you. If you want to ensure your cart performs well then a VPS is a good option.

Cons of a Virtual Private Server

To be honest there aren't really that many - it is a cost effective way of hosting an ecommerce site. If you don't have any technical skills or only have limited ones then you are more likely to go for a managed host.

The only bit most people read - the summary

Hosting from Home Hosting from home or the office is really not an option for most people unless you have already have a lot of the equipment and the skills to look after it all yourself. To be honest you are better of outsourcing it which will free you up for actually running your e-commerce site and making money.
Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is still a good option especially if you are looking to startup and don't want to shell out a lot of money for a more expensive and potentially more technically demanding option such as VPS or a dedicated server.
If you know which shopping cart you are planning to use e.g Opencart or Prestashop then you can check with the host if their hosting plans will support this. I am from the UK and the choices of hosts are poor - although they are getting better.
VPS Hosting
VPS is currently my personal favourite as I think you can get some good value for money. A provider like Linode has datacenters in the UK and in the US. This is very useful if you wish to tailor your servers location to match your customer base.
I was very nervous about taking on the management of a server for the first time as managing your server and preventing it from being broken into seems intimdating. However, people like slicehost, linode and a few others have excellent documentation which talks you through setting up your server and getting it to a sensible level of security.