eCommerce Hosting – Questions to Ask Before Joining

There are tons of hosting services on the market right now that are reaching out specifically to those online retail stores. E-commerce opportunities are quite remarkable to say the least, but like most web-related matters you will only ever finds yourself performing as well as your chosen hosting package allows you to. It’s all well and good to set up an amazing e-commerce business with great products and winning service, but another entirely to reach your full potential with a hosting service that ticks all the right boxes.So with this in mind, here’s a quick overview of some of the most important questions to ask when looking to buy into a new e-commerce hosting package:     What Kinds of Set-Up Times Can I Expect?You know for a fact that time is money when it comes to any retail business, so don’t make the mistake of signing up with a hosting company that’s likely to make you wait an unreasonable length of time to get the site up and running. Ideally you should be looking for a package that’s well within your own understanding and puts you in the driving seat, so that once you’ve signed up you can go live in an instant.Can I See Samples of Templates?The way your site looks will play a huge role in establishing its reputation, so never take appearances for granted. As such, if looking to use the themes and design options that come as part of the e-commerce hosting package, be sure to ask to see at least a few of them before signing up.Do You Impose Any Transaction Fees?Particularly in the case of those hosting companies that charge next to nothing for their e-commerce hosting packages, there’s a strong chance that you may be liable to pay a percentage of each sale over to the hosting company. This is somewhat normal and not a sign of a scam – it can in fact be a blessing during times when very few sales are being made. But in any case you need to know how much you will be paying, so be sure to ask.How Far Does Your Technical Support Go?The only tech support that’s in any way acceptable for an e-commerce store is 24/7 tech support than never sleeps. The reason being that your site is running at all hours and so your business and reputation are both on the line night and day – you need to know that help is on hand no matter when you run into difficulties.Will My Store Be Secure?Question security and make sure that all national standards are adhered to when it comes to things like payment card data protection and SSL Certificates.What Is Your Uptime Guarantee?And finally, for every second your store is offline, you could be losing more money than you will ever know. As such, downtime is 100% unacceptable and any hosting company worth doing business with will offer a near-flawless uptime guarantee of at least 99.99%. Anything lower and the risk is just too great.