Web hosting has been a sideline service I've provided for my clients, mostly just very small web presence sites that require little maintenance.

Now though I am getting a number of requests for web commerce (shopping carts, reordering, etc). I know nothing about what is involved in this other than I need a secure server, and thus a certificate from Verisign.

I've had some folks tell me it is all more trouble than it is worth.

I am a reseller on an Ensim server.

What all is involved and is it worth the effort. Dare I ask what sort of pricing is involved in this?

Open for ideas, but please, be gentle.

Thanks,

Actually you will find that hosting ecommerce sites are more profitable in the long run. Minimum I charge to host a fully featured shopping cart is $59.95-$79.95 and that is using the same resources I use for any small site. You can choose to handle the development of cart if that is part of your service or just outsource. The following are some resources you need to put together and it may seem like alot but once you figure out which process you are going to use it's really simple:

1. Shopping cart software (which one are you going to use, try to have at least 4 solutions, a regular secure form, or a buy button, or a low product cart, and or a larger product cart ).

2. Who will be uploading images and programming prices into cart, and also if need be who will design the site like home, about us, etc.

3. Decide how you will process cards, you can either get a third party like 2checkout.com, or process cards manually into credit card terminal, or process cards by entering into a web based virtual terminal, or process cards in real time automatically through shopping cart by signing up for a merchant account with a bank and getting a secured gateway like authorize.net.

Those are just some quickie steps, but if you need another little run down visit http://www.unitedebusiness.com/e_commerce/faq.htm
or just email....

The folks I've talked to currently accept credit cards so I didn't think the payment processing was an issue, but now I am thinking of something different.

With 2checkout, the server security lies with them does it not? So an option for people just getting into web commerce would be to design the shopping cart and then just send the price to 2checkout? Then they pay a higher percentage on their sales to the CC company, but less to me. Not good for me, but an option to them correct?

Since they are all new to web commerce, I was bouncing around just charging a per transaction fee to minimize their advanced outlay, and in essence partnering with them for the first few months. Is that being done anywhere or do folks just take cash up front?

Thanks,

The nice thing about the internet is that it allows you to get creative and build a variety of business models just like the one you are talking about, charging customer a per transaction fee. I personally like to offer services and charge the fees I think are fair, but it sounds to me like you are running your own 2checkout.com by charging your own transactions fees which I think is profitable if you can get some quality companies under your belt that have a nice sized customer base. Being that I already earn residuals from every transaction my customer make from online sales or your traditional credit card retail terminals because I am a bankcard agent, I must say it can become very profitable if you can build a nice portfolio.

You don't need a certificate from versign, just a certificate :D

Doesn't current reseller provider offer a SSL for your server? We use Miva Merchant. Works great on Ensim. It also has a very large support community.

The problems with cheaper cart solutions are security, support and upgrades.

If you have any specific questions, drop me a line off-forum.

Regards,

Peter Stoermer
TotalHosting.com

hmmm i've seen many talking about Miva and Ensim...
How about Miva and cPanel? Do they work well together?

I was using Ensim but has moved on to a cPanel server.... will it affect my MIVA hosting?

please enlighten

Your best bet is to ask this question to the miva-users mailing list.

You need to subscribe first to the list before posting.

Find the info here
Miva User Groups (http://www.miva.com/support/usr_grps/)

I've never used CPanel, so I don't know.

Pete Stoermer
Total Hosting