A complete guide to E-commerce Hosting

September 1, 2010 / Web Hosting

If you are thinking about launching a new e-commerce website with the hosting part then, do not forget that your needs are unique. Besides a basic web hosting plan, you will need full support for its e-commerce platform.

Hosting E-commerce: The Basic Needs

As electronic commerce grows,it’s basic needs are as important as the websites. You need fast bandwidth and enough space and support the number of visitors and buyers that you are expecting.

Hosting of E-commerce and Its Process of Payment made by Customers

Once you have decided on the process of paying customers in electronic commerce on your site, you need to make sure that your hosting service can support them and that is efficient. In many cases payment for the purchase of products through the Internet, there is a need for some specific programs or API (Advanced Programming Interface) installed on your server so that you can use it whenever required.

What happens when my hosting provider of e-commerce does not support my payment process?

  1. Immediately contact the customer support and ask them if they are willing to install the necessary software. Can take and give some work to get it, but be persistent.
  2. If option-1 is not working, you need to change your gateway for online payment or your hosting provider of e-commerce. Anyway, make sure that the new hosting provider of e-commerce support your current payment gateway online.

    A platform for efficient e-commerce enables customers know and buying profiles through relationship tools and monitoring processes.

Main Modules and Tools:

  1. Design / Layout : Design is responsible for the client to connect emotionally with the store, making the experience of being in your company is unique. This prompts him to seek further information within the virtual structure of your company. It Should be:
    • Design Shop 100 % customized
    • Have integration between design and programming in an organized and clear manner
    • Structure based on usability studies
    • Autonomy to customize fields and text directly from the control panel
    • Consultancy for creating banners and images for your store
    • Customized look for each section of your online store
    • Visual theme for each list of “Tips Products”
  2. Institutional content : Through a simplified control panel, you have freedom to manage their customer help pages and information about your firm, changing text and images.
  3. Clients : Knowing your customer is the first step to success in sales. The e-commerce should provide all the tools necessary for this to occur, such as:
    • Simplified register of customers
    • Registration of multiple delivery addresses, such as checking online CEP
    • Report of purchases made by customers
    • Information on individual and overall average ticket
    • Product unavailable and that the customer wishes to receive a notice when they come into stock again
    • Products the customer has indicated to others
    • Checking product reviews made by the client
    • List of most profitable customers and assets
    • Analysis of client inactivity, allowing contact to return sales
    • History of the latest products displayed by the client
    • Lock customers with a history of fraud
    • Adding comments available only to administrators
  4. Customer Area : After signing up at your store the client has access to an exclusive area where you can manage your information and preferences, as follows:
    • My Account : Personal information management, such as email, phone, status, etc…
    • Delivery Address : Management of delivery addresses
    • Order History : Information on the applications already made, such as amount, date, tracking number, etc…
    • Wedding List : Managing the list of requested products, products already purchased, that has value as bonuses, etc…
  5. Navigation tools : Home page with featured products and promotions:
    • Search for products by name, manufacturer or description
    • Display of promotional banners
    • Easier navigation through historical hierarchical sections viewed
  6. Products / Stock : Both their products as their stocks can be managed through a central tool and robust. The e-commerce can be used for selling any type of product. It must have:
    • Management Section, Category and Sub-category of your catalog
    • Management and creation of individual page of Manufacturers
    • Possibility of registration of products in multiple areas of the store
    • Registration of products with variations in color, size, etc., defining value, stock,
    • weight and other information on an individual basis
    • Registration of individual meta tags for improved positioning in search engine
    • Custom description fields
    • Determination of featured products
    • Possibility of working with free shipping by product
    • Sending multiple files and automatic creation of thumbnails
    • Determination of minimum stock generally or individually, where the system
    • sends a warning via e-mail stating when the product reaches the limit specified
    • Simplified control enabling reporting, and online update inventory
    • Statistics and purchased products more accessible
    • Verification of customers who bought the product
    • Registration of related products or automatic display of “who bought this product also bought X”

       

  7. Tools Relationship / Sale : Through the tools of relationship can offer a better service and also a closer relationship to their customers, customizing them and making their mark fix :
    • Discount Coupons : Great option to offer discounts and benefits to both customers and for future customers. You can offer discounts as a percentage (ex: 15% discount), fixed value (ex: $5 or $10 discount), free shipping and determine a minimum value for this benefit is offered.
    • Online service via CHAT : Enables a more dynamic service to its customers as it is online. They may contact their team directly through its store, getting even induce an increase in the amount of the request by generating instant discounts
    • Suggest this product: Let your customers from forwarding tips to friends via a simple click in your store. Record the information in the database for future generation of sales.
    • Tell Me When You Are Available: Have you thought about how many of your customers are waiting to return a product to stock in your store? Through this tool they can register to receive a notice when the product becomes available and you can better plan what and how many products will reset to its stock.
    • Wedding List : If your products are commonly demanded by grooms, allow to create lists of marriages and offer discounts on the value of purchases made through its store
    • Product Tips : Create lists of tips on products for special occasions or specific audiences that can create pages with unique look for each tip
    • E- mail marketing : Integrating your store with a professional tool for email marketing where you can send personalized messages via e -mail to your customers, promoting products and news. After sending, you see a full report of the quantity of emails delivered, read, clicked, etc…
    • Tool banners : Distribute their products visually, giving them more prominence. Real time control the amount of views and clicks received by your campaign.
    • Gift Wrapping : Determine which products can be packed for this and how much to charge for this service.
    • Specialty stores : Want to create an environment with a different layout to disclose a release or a new supplier? Create a “store special” with visual and differentiated products
    • Free Shipping : Manage ZIP tracks where the freight will be charged. You can also determine which is the minimum amount of purchase for which the benefit is offered.
    • Product Reviews and Rating : Allow your customers to qualify and comment on products in your store.
    • Cross-selling : Search and automatic display of “who bought this product also bought xxx”. You can also determine which products are related, “forcing” the view of this statement.
  8. Shopping Cart : It is through him that your customers can see products purchased, amounts of freight, discount coupons, etc :
    • Smart Cart : Records all actions of his client so that it is not necessary that he inform the characteristics of the application again, such as zip code, Discount Coupon, etc…
    • Possibility to change the desired quantity and removing products.
      Check stock at all stages of the cart, not allowing your customer to buy products which are out of stock
    • Automatic calculation of freight according to weight and value of the claim
      Modern design and clear, enabling quick understanding of the summary of purchase
    • Automatic calculation of values for splitting
  9. Multiple Administrators : Thinking about the growth and expansion of your business, you can control multiple administrators with access to your management tool, and to determine which areas each can access. Moreover, the actions taken by them will be logged, allowing you to follow all the steps used in the process of closing request.
  10. Order Management : E-commerce offers simplified forms to manage day-to-day operations of their store. This is the module you will have more interaction, managing the processing of applications received :
    • Listing quick search requests by customer, date, amount, status, etc…
      Details of products, customer, sending form, form of payment, etc…
      Checking the log of the interactions made in the application as an exchange of status and comments
    • Adding comments available only to administrators
    • Automatic printing of labels Possibility of exporting data to Excel for the issuance of tax-note
    • Automatic transmission by the message system after 10 days of delivery to the customer requesting comment on the material received
    • Verification of customer order history
    • Integration module banners and Email Marketing for measuring results leveraged
    • Integration with the anti-fraud tool for analysis of purchases
    • Reports on order volume, profit-medium, most sought after products, etc…
  11. Statistics and Reports : E-commerce will allow the intersection of diverse information in order to create custom reports and enable a comprehensive analysis of your online store.
  12. Shipping Methods and Payment : Because it is modular you can integrate all the tools for collection and delivery controllers that provide gateways calculation or tables so that they are made. Among them we can highlight :
    • Credit Cards: All flags credit card
    • Credit card authorization form : All banks are available
    • Payment Gateway : Digital Payment, PayPal and Google Checkout
    • Post office: Express Mail, PAC, e- Courier, Courier 10
    • Transport : With national coverage and with gateway or table to calculate freight through scaling, weight and value
  13. Safety : Safety of information from your store is one of our biggest concerns. All the code is read-protected through encryption and all processes must be tested and audited so they can not be changed by malicious users. Moreover, every financial transaction is effected in a safe environment and no data for charging his client is stored on the server.
  14. SEO : It is a technique of optimizing a page (or even the entire site) to be better understood by search engines. The consequence of using SEO techniques is the best positioning of a site on a results page from a search :
    • Good rankings in search engines is now one of the best ways to attract customers to his store, however, is a process that requires great effort and customization of your store
    • The e-commerce tool was developed considering the various SEO tools, we can highlight
    • Use of URLs Setting meta-tags and page title according to products and the page being viewed
    • Development layout with source code clean and well structured
  15. External Tools : The provider should have strategic partnerships to provide the customers with third-party tools with value and customer care services. E-commerce easily integrated with several tools, including:
    1. EBIT : Qualification tool for online stores
    2. Google Analytics: Integration for tracking client interaction and visits to the shop
    3. Click Heat : Tool for positioning analysis of clicks within your site. Allows to identify which areas clicked by users
  16. Module B2B – Wholesale Sales : With e-commerce you can have in a same-store sales in two distinct interfaces : one for the end customer (B2C) and another for wholesale (B2B), and the only option for channel.

    The module for wholesale sales makes some changes in the structure of your online store. Among them are:

    • Customer base with pre-approval, certain credit limit, and discounting the price table to used.
    • Registration of products with price ranges for amount and type of room pricing.
    • Sales reports by customer, outstanding payments, etc…
  17. Consulting and Support : The company shall provide all necessary advice during the development of your online store so that everything happens according to plan.

    Even after finalizing the development process, you will have continued support of the company to determine the technical and operational questions. In case of purchase of e-commerce tool support offered for some months and in case of leasing, while the contract is in force.

  18. Hosting and Maintenance Online: Maintenance of special servers for web hosting requirement of your online store, secure environment with unlimited transactions, hits, etc… Besides the website you can use a shared SSL certificate secure accounts or a dedicated SSL certificate, email and various tools for managing email.

Always, look for a solution of e-commerce (online store) that gives you complete flexibility and security, of-course made by a different company that offers differentiated services to not have any kind of headaches in the future.

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