How can I find a good shopping
cart program?
From simple
freeware to sophisticated and expensive hosted software, a huge
number of shopping cart programs is available for download or
purchase. To get an idea of the variety of programs out there, try
a general search for the term “shopping carts” on a search engine
like Google, browse the e-commerce scripts at sites such as
HotScripts.com, or check out the resources at the
eCommerce Info Center
(a listing of shopping cart links can be found under “Software” in
the “eCom Products” section).
Among the shopping cart programs hosts frequently use
are
AbleCommerce,
Click Cart Pro,
Interchange (formerly MiniVend),
LaGarde’s StoreFront,
Mercantec’s SoftCart,
Miva Merchant and
osCommerce.
Which program you end up using will depend on your
specific needs and know-how, so be sure to carefully research your
options and ask others about their experiences. As always, it’s
helpful to search the web hosting forums for comments on “shopping
carts” or to ask others directly for their input.
Where can I
obtain a SSL certificate?
You can
obtain a SSL certificate from many companies. Here are a
few of them:
VeriSign
Thawte (owned by VeriSign)
GeoTrust
SSLCertificate.com
SSL-Certificates.us
SSLWhale
Comodo
Rackshack
If you are using shared hosting you will have to get
your host to provide you with a Certificate Signing
Request (CSR) that you will need to enter at the SSL
certificate provider's site and you will need a
dedicated IP. Many hosts also provide shared SSL
(https://secure.host.com/~you/).
SSL Certificates vary in price, with pricing starting at
$25 for Rackshack SSL. Adverage pricing is around
~$50-$100 these days, though some larger companies such
as VeriSign & Thawte still charge more.
Ecommerce hosting
Online
businesses have their own special concerns when they are
looking for good web hosting. For an online store you
will most likely need a product catalog connected to a
shopping cart, and some kind of payment processing.
Product catalogs
An efficient
and easy to update product catalog is driven by a
database, so a good ecommerce web hosting account
includes database access. Common databases are MySQL,
Microsoft Access and MS SQL. Besides database access,
you need a scripting language to communicate with the
database. All common scripting languages, like PHP, ASP
and JSP, can do this job just fine.
Shopping carts
Any good
online store has a shopping cart, so you need one too.
There are plenty of free shopping cart solutions
available, and most ecommerce web hosting accounts come
with one or more shopping carts available. And consider
the integration between shopping carts and product
catalogs.
Payment processing
Unlike other
ecommerce necessities, this is normally not included
with ecommerce web hosting. There are 2 main options.
Get a merchant account and charge your customers credit
cards yourself, or leave it to a 3rd party payment
processor company. This is most often done without any
involment from the web host, but they may help you by
recommending merchant accounts/payment processors.
If you are
planning on getting a merchant account and to the CC
processing yourself, you need access to a secure server.
A dedicated server is also an advantage, specially if
you want to store your customers CC numbers. Dedicated
servers are just far more secure than a shared server,
and you don't want to be responsible for what happens if
someone hacks into your server and steals the CC numbers
you have stored.
3rd party
payment processing is easier, and you have less to worry
about. It is easy to set up, and the CC processing
company does all the hard work. On the downside, it is
more expensive, and it looks less professional if some
other company's name shows up on your customers CC
bills. Make sure you tell your customers what is going
to show up on their CC bills to avoid any chargebacks
and confused customers.