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E-commerce hosting question

K

Klaerth

Weaksauce
Joined
Jul 10, 2007
Messages
87
When it comes to seeking hosting for an E-commerce site, is it generally better to go for those that provide the whole package (setting up their own E-commerce app, doing some amount of the work for you, and providing the hosting, all in one), or to just pick a host and attempt to set up an open source solution?

I have family that is seeking to move into selling some of their products online, and they wouldn't be offering many - 15-20 products maximum. They're in a bit of a rush to set things up, and so I'm guiding them through getting an internet merchant account, setting up a payment gateway, and so forth...but I'm uncertain as to what to go for hosting-wise. I've never personally dealt with any of the open source packages out there, so I'm not certain how easy they are to learn/set up. They're desiring for PayPal to be a viable option, so that is the choice there thus far.

As an idle note, I'm a bit wary of the cheaper hosting services on shared servers, as a note. I've had recurring issues with clients not receiving e-mails due to sharing a server with spammers in the past. =x

So, what would be others' opinions? Go with a full e-commerce package from someone such as GoDaddy or Yahoo! (though surely not Yahoo!, given their additional per-sale fee), or go with some hosting service and set up an open-source package?
 
It sounds like calendar time has a higher importance than minor percentage differences between hosting costs. So if calendar time is the more critical factor, then go with whatever package has the quickest turnaround from their perspective. This would probably be a host that has all of the base features you want. Then spend your time doing refactoring and tweaking, if necessary, after the store is available.

That approach would allow your family to get their feet wet and familiar with the high-level processes and handling the business requirements, without pressure on you to completely install, customize, and configure an E-Comm environment.

Leave the onus (and your personal concerns/fears) of hosting, uptime, responsiveness, and email sending on the host -- that's what you're paying them for. Hosting packages are not marriages; go through support groups as needed, and find another host if necessary.
 
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Thankee muchly for the advice..! With what was said in mind, might anyone have any suggestions as to hosts that provide an acceptable e-commerce package/solution? I'm avoiding the known-to-be-unpleasant ones such as GoDaddy and Yahoo!, but otherwise am seeking something that can be brought up relatively quickly (in less than a week, the quicker, the better).
 
This is one of those topics that is in abundance in the forums. Recently, though, there was this thread and there's also the sticky at the top of the forum. Searching the Webmastering forum (as well as the Networking forum) would give more results.
 
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