Starting an e-commerce web site
Discussion
I'm starting a new project tommorrow. My parents have decided its time to start a e-commerce web site. Currently we have two shops selling home furnishings. Some of our products are bespoke and we'd struggle to sell on the internet, others lighting, pictures etc will be more simply. We serve the local area well, but would like to serve the whole country. We are starting from a single page information only site. We already have a company that will host the site and help with design of the site. My first job is to find a gateway provider and to sort out a merchant accout I believe. We currently bank with hsbc. I'm just looking for any advice anyone wants to give me. I'm looking for potential problems, do's, donts and watch out for's. Its going to be hard work and time consuming, which im not worried about, but it will be fairly expensive project and I would hate for it to fail. I'm also concerned we'll have a great site, which no one can find or know about.
Thanks in advance
Lew
Thanks in advance
Lew
Lew,
You've come to the right place
JamieB will be along at some point quite soon, and will be able to give you some useful info from a hosting point of view for a shop, along with merchant-related info, SEM, etc, etc.
And then there's the rest of us for everything else.
It's a bit early in the day for me - as I'm in the process of setting up a pukker e-commerce site - so not yet setup the merchant or SEM aspects to it yet. Got to build the site first
You've come to the right place
JamieB will be along at some point quite soon, and will be able to give you some useful info from a hosting point of view for a shop, along with merchant-related info, SEM, etc, etc.
And then there's the rest of us for everything else.
It's a bit early in the day for me - as I'm in the process of setting up a pukker e-commerce site - so not yet setup the merchant or SEM aspects to it yet. Got to build the site first
Just make sure that you're using the latest secure versions of any software, try and avoid shared hosting totally as with shared, if your site is super secure, but just one of the hundreds of other sites on the server is compromised, then you're compromised, along with all of your customers secure content.
Look into an SSL certificate to ensure encrypted communication between your clients and your site, even if you have a third party handling the actual payment processing, it's still good practise to secure your users passwords and communications.
Try and migrate to virtual dedicated or physical dedicated hosting as soon as your funds permit, this way you're only needing to worry about your own sites security, as opposed to other sites.
If you have any queries, or want to revisit your hosting requirements, drop me a mail via profile.
J
Look into an SSL certificate to ensure encrypted communication between your clients and your site, even if you have a third party handling the actual payment processing, it's still good practise to secure your users passwords and communications.
Try and migrate to virtual dedicated or physical dedicated hosting as soon as your funds permit, this way you're only needing to worry about your own sites security, as opposed to other sites.
If you have any queries, or want to revisit your hosting requirements, drop me a mail via profile.
J
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