Hello.
I plan to start my e-commerce business.
There are 2 possibilities for my shop platform:
1. To set up my own server with shopping cart.
2 To use hosted solutions (just to set up payment gateway, payment settings, upload catalog of products etc).

Probably i will choose the second one BUT - please, which are the underwater stones of hosted solutions?
Thanks in advance.

In my opinion, you’ll get more flexibility with your own server and shopping cart however; with a hosted solution, you’ll likely get a complete solution in much less time. The right option depends upon your requirements, abilities, and budget. Also, be sure to consider PCI certification is required for all sites processing credit card transactions. On a shared host, you can get a PA DSS certified cart and the process can be very easy (just filling out a form) with a low upfront cost. Gaining PCI certification on a dedicated server can be much more time consuming and costly.

Thank you.

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A hosted solution is generally more expensive than buying a shared hosting plan/VPS and usng your own shopping cart. The issue that I see is that with a hosted solution you are stuck with them if you don't like their service. Especially if they are slow or non-responsive to your support tickets. If you go with a hosted soultion you cannot take the shopping cart with you. So you are basically back to square one. If you choose your own shopping cart you can host it almost anywhere with almost any host. So if you have problems with the hosting you can move quickly and easily. And with little to no loss of business.

Bottom line is if you go with your own cart/hosting/processor you have many more choices in cart software/features and price (Free if you use open source). You have more choices in processors helping to keep your costs lower. You have a choice in web hosts and keeping your re-occurring costs low. And you have the ability to move with little or no issues in an emergency or if you have issues. Even when you need to upgrade when your store gets huge you will have an easier time moving to a VPS or dedicated server. Also, you have more control over design and operation of the cart software.

The upside to the hosted cart is that is easier to get started and upfront costs are lower. And of course the re-occurring costs are higher so your overall cost of doing business when sales are your lowest will be higher.

I think you have to think in the long term. I would prefer to use a open solutions and some support to have the store up and running quickly.

If you go for a hosted solution and your business grows you will have big problems migrating your site.

cheers

Hello.
I plan to start my e-commerce business.
There are 2 possibilities for my shop platform:
1. To set up my own server with shopping cart.
2 To use hosted solutions (just to set up payment gateway, payment settings, upload catalog of products etc).

Probably i will choose the second one BUT - please, which are the underwater stones of hosted solutions?
Thanks in advance.
Hi, Hermesmold

Personally, I would like to recommend the 2nd option since it would be a burdensome technical job in maintaining a server by yourself. Anyhow, we need to focus on our e-commerce business at the very beginning. It is also not so difficult in transferring a site to a new host, might be on our own server in the future.

Have a nice day,

Choose a Host who gives you the possibility to upgrade the service you have and start with a Hosting Account, if you see that this is no longer enough to what you need just upgrade. This has the advantage that you can keep expenses low at the beginning and grow the infrastructure together with your business.

an account that wil upgrade is a good call for you, you need a host that will grow as your business does

Hello.
I plan to start my e-commerce business.
There are 2 possibilities for my shop platform:
1. To set up my own server with shopping cart.
2 To use hosted solutions (just to set up payment gateway, payment settings, upload catalog of products etc).

Probably i will choose the second one BUT - please, which are the underwater stones of hosted solutions?
Thanks in advance.

Heya,

I went through that decision years ago and regretted it. The downside to your own shopping cart is you'll need SSL, and if anything goes wrong support is usually pay as you go, and it can get expensive.

Shopping carts are proprietary and they often don't have a lot of online support so you're pretty dependent on them. I thought buying one for a few hundred dollars would save over monthly costs of a gateway, but quickly spent the difference on support tokens with Digishop.

hi
1. To set up my own server with shopping cart. (it takes really much time and staff that You will need to search)
2 To use hosted solutions (just to set up payment gateway, payment settings, upload catalog of products etc). As jonn said that wil upgrade is a good call for you, you need a host that will grow as your business does.
But I would prefer 1st one. Because in my opinion the final result should be better in many ways.(like, roughly speaking You will be your own boss).

I think it depends on how much customization you'd like to do to your store. If you need to really tweak things to be specific to your store based on the products you sell or what not, you'll likely want to go the route of getting web hosting from a web host and setting up the cart yourself.

But if you're really just looking for something more turn-key like where you can just plug in your information and products and go, you'll want to take a look a hosted solutions.

You should go with a dedicated virtual server. Your focus is to make money with your ecommerce site, not worry about hardware, bandwidth, elexctric costs, coolong costs, server backup etc.

I've been down the steet with my own web & email servers, servers crashing, bandwidth costs, etc.

I've moved to all virtual servers.

If you think you will grow fast, go for a dedicated server.

You are in control for everything. That is the reason for a dedicated server.