If you have an online store, it’s more important to choose a good ecommerce hosting provider than you might think. Too many businesses fail due to terrible loading speeds, poor security, and improperly managed web servers.
But what makes a great ecommerce host? We’ve put together a list of the key qualities you should always look for in a hosting provider to support your research and make a better-informed decision.
Types of Ecommerce Hosting
There are several different types of hosting you’ll need to know about, which determine your server’s hardware and setup. Traditionally, there are three main types: shared, VPS, and dedicated hosting.
Shared hosting is the lowest tier, suitable for startups and individuals who just want to get online.It’s usually very cheap, but that comes at the cost of slower speed and having to share server space with several other websites. This type of hosting isn’t suitable for ecommerce sites unless you can’t afford anything else.
VPS stands for “Virtual private server”. Your server shares a machine with other websites, but its resources are isolated, eliminating many of the problems associated with shared hosting. Then, dedicated hosting is the top tier, giving you your own private, physical server. Of course, this doesn’t come cheap. Both of these hosting types work well for ecommerce, but there’s a better solution.
Cloud hosting is a popular solution to a common issue of ecommerce sites: quickly outgrowing their server environment. Cloud hosting is completely scalable. You can add or remove resources at any time. And it’s very affordable for startups too!
For growing ecommerce sites, the cloud is almost certainly the infrastructure you want.
There’s also another layer to hosting types: managed vs. unmanaged hosting.
Unmanaged hosting is usually cheaper, but there’s a big downside. You have to do all the server setup and configuration yourself, as well as ongoing security and maintenance. You’re basically just purchasing the right to an empty server.
With managed hosting, everything is covered. Setup, configuration, security, maintenance, support, and updates. A managed ecommerce host will help you get your store running and make sure it stays that way.
In short, cloud hosting is likely the best solution for an ecommerce website.
8 Aspects You Need to Look for in an Ecommerce Hosting Provider
There are some features that every ecommerce host should have. When you’re searching for an ecommerce host that will be a good fit for your online store, look out for these key features.
1. High Performance
As an ecommerce site, your first priority should be finding a host that’s fast and reliable. 57% of consumers will leave your site if load times are longer than 3 seconds, and 80% of them will never return. That’s a lot of lost potential.
The problem with shared hosting is that it’s slow and has frequent downtime, which is unacceptable for any online store. You also have to be careful with who you choose, as some hosts have unreliable infrastructure that will cause slowdowns or crashes.
Every web hosting company is going to advertise itself as the best and fastest around, so doing research is necessary. Sites like Hosting Facts can give you solid uptime and ping data to help you make the right decision.
2. Bandwidth and File Storage
Ecommerce sites take up a lot of file space and they’re also the type of website that usually pulls in the most traffic. You’re going to need a host that has enough resources for you unless you want to end up paying hefty overage fees.
Images are a key part of any site’s design and you’re going to need a lot of them no matter what you’re designing. Ecommerce sites, in particular, tend to eat up storage fast. Every product you upload is going to need multiple high-resolution images, and when your store gets big enough, it’s easy to wonder where all your file space has gone.
3. Scalable Hosting
Unlike other types of websites, which grow steadily and predictably over time, an ecommerce store’s traffic can be quite variable. Holidays often trigger an intense surge of traffic, customers come out of nowhere, and growth tends to be sudden and exponential. In a managed ecommerce host, you should look for scalable resources that can grow alongside your business.
4. Proactive Support
Issues and errors are bound to crop up in your new site. If your host doesn’t have a good support team that’s ready to help when you reach out, your site could be down for hours. Support should be friendly, helpful, fast, and able to work with you when there’s a problem in a proactive manner.
Behind every support team should be a group of experienced developers. If the web host’s infrastructure and servers are built well and experience little downtime, it’s a good sign that their development team will be able to assist you with even the most unexpected issues.
You won’t usually get help for problems that happen within your site itself, but when it’s on their end of the server, the issue will be taken care of. At Kinsta, while we can’t fix all errors within your code, we can help you identify the issue so you can quickly get it resolved. Look for 24/7 support
5. Full Security
Ecommerce sites are often targeted by hackers, due to the sensitive data they protect: credit card numbers, Paypal and bank passwords, and often the full names and addresses of users.
It’s very lucrative to hack a poorly secured online store and brand new startups often don’t know how to keep this important data safe so you need to secure your website now.Securing your own code is up to you and your developers, but many hacks happen due to poor security on part of your web host. Flaws in the server code allow malicious actors to easily infiltrate your website, gaining access to user data, recording passwords as they’re sent through the server, or even placing malware on your website that targets users.
6.WooCommerce Integration
If you’re starting your store in WordPress, chances are, you’re using WooCommerce. Not all web hosts work well with that plugin right off the bat. You might not run into issues at first, but your site may not run as well as it could lack advanced functionality like WooCommerce-specific caching (and more).
With WordPress being as popular as it is, the best ecommerce hosts should include WooCommerce hosting.
Another overlooked aspect you should require from your ecommerce hosting provider is PCI compliance. PCI stands for “payment card industry” and it’s a set of security standards meant to keep user data from being leaked due to poor website security. Every website that accepts credit card data must be PCI compliant.
It’s impossible for a host to guarantee PCI compliance since you need to do a lot of work yourself to get your site secure. But it’s certainly possible for them to make the process easier for you by offering SSL certificates, securing their servers with a firewall, and using strong server infrastructure.
Doing a PCI audit is up to you, but a good ecommerce host will work with you to help secure your site and do any tweaks necessary to make your website PCI compliant.
7. Automatic Backups
We couldn’t stress enough how important backups are for ecommerce sites. Automatic data backups are an absolute must. Daily, weekly, or even hourly in some cases: a solid backup system needs to be in place to protect your crucial store and database files.
Especially if you’re working in WordPress where it’s easy to accidentally change sensitive settings, you could make a mistake that results in your site going down or database being corrupted.
If you don’t have a recent backup, you’re going to lose a lot of time and effort trying to get everything back to normal. You might even end up losing everything. That’s why you need a host with backups built-in, so you can run your business with peace of mind.
8. Developer-Friendly Environment
If you’re a developer and want to dive into the advanced hosting options, it can be hard to find a host that supports you. Web hosts understandably don’t want beginner users tinkering with critical files and bringing their whole website crashing down.
But when you need to edit core WordPress files, set up tools like WP-CLI or Git, or even just update your PHP version, many hosts will make this an absolute nightmare for you.
Summary
Too many brand new websites fall victim to the common problem: slow loading speed, poor security, and lack of support due to a bad web host. Starting out with a run-of-the-mill shared host might seem cheap, but it’s not worth the negative effect on your bottom line.
When looking for an ecommerce hosting provider you should pick one that’s ready to scale according to your business needs and offers top-notch quality as well as affordable plans.
