Tips on How to Tell Which Ecommerce Hosting Service Will Deliver
A Home Business Article Contributed by Christopher Kyalo
Tips on How to Tell Which Ecommerce Hosting Service Will Deliver
Ecommerce hosting services are many on the net and the number is rapidly rising all the time. So how does one get down to selecting the best host for their ecommerce service?
Try and Telephone Your Ecommerce Host
Because many hosts are small one man enterprises, many usually give out the customer service function to another company. naturally somebody else will not care enough about giving quality service to your customers.
The result is that emergency service numbers will quite often be answered by an answering machine. Or when answered by a human voice, the technical person may not be an English-speaker.
So a good way to start is to investigate just how good the customer service and response time to emergencies of the web hosting service you want to use in your ecommerce venture. Getting the relevant telephone numbers and investigating may not be very easy before you sign up, but it is surprising how effective one can be in finding information when they know what they are looking for.
Pay Monthly for Your Ecommerce Hosting Service
In the past, the only payment arrangement that has been there for hosting services has been an annual fee. Some hosts even used to insist on two years up front payment. This is now rapidly changing and there are many ecommerce hosting services these days that allow for flexible monthly payments.
Where you have not been able to get enough information, insist on paying monthly, at least for the first three months and then make a decision whether you want to continue with that particular host for your ecommerce venture or not.
Testing the Ecommerce Site of the Host is Not a Conclusive Test
Some ecommerce entrepreneurs apply a simple test to determine how good their potential host is. They try and access the site at different times and tell their friends to help, in an effort to catch the site down.
This is far from being a conclusive test. If you had a poor hosting service with too many accounts, which account would you make an effort to ensure that it is up and accessible all the time? Your own of course. Because many potential clients will not be able to access the clients you host and will therefore make a judgment based on the hosts own site.
One Man Shows Can Also Be Good
Despite what we have said in this article, there are many small ecommerce entrepreneurs who offer excellent hosting services to rival anything you will get anywhere else in the world. So do give your fellow small home based business entrepreneurs a chance, but test extensively before you commit yourself to a long term contract.
The other thing you should know is that a big company hosting service is not necessarily a good one. You will have come across many well established big names in business who offer very shoddy and poor services. Thus the rule for everybody is that you ensure you test extensively before committing yourself to be hosted, your ecommerce venture depends on it.
