Choose A Reliable Web Hosting For Your Web Business
Building Customer Trust with Secure E-Commerce
By Paras Shah
Whether your e-commerce operation involves selling an entire catalogue of items, a small collection of goods, or even just one product, the simple reality is that unless people buy the items for sale on your Web site, you won't make any money. And while the last few years have done a lot to make consumers more comfortable with the idea of shopping online, a significant effort is still necessary, on your part, to convince a potential consumer that they will be doing business with a secure and trustworthy operation.
And because you'll have to employ some form of remote payment, you'll have to do business with some type of transaction processing business. And even more than your customers, your billing solution partners will demand some assurance that your operation is secure before they involve themselves in your transactions.
To put it simply: in the e-commerce business, securing trust in your company is essential to your success. Trust is as important to a potential customer's purchasing decision as the products you offer him. And an essential element of building that trust, with both customers and partners, is the assurance that your e-commerce operation meets the demanding security standards required of organizations handling sensitive financial information.
Setting up a Storefront
A big part of building trust with your customers is your presentation. The very fact that they're browsing your online store is a good indicator that they're familiar with the possibilities of online shopping, and are prepared to consider buying. What you do to convince them, and the effectiveness of your efforts, may be the deciding factor in a possible sale.
The shopping interface you introduce to customers is arguably the most important piece of your e-commerce site's presentation. A familiar, easy-to-navigate interface can go a long way toward establishing the trust you're after. Seasoned online shoppers will know what to expect from an e-commerce site, and meeting those expectations is a good way to gain their confidence. And novice surfers will probably be more comfortable if your online store closely resembles the major e-commerce interfaces they might have encountered.
Building a storefront compatible with your customers' expectations is one of the more obviously beneficial features of using an e-commerce software product such as those provided by Miva ( www.Miva.com ), BizCrafter ( www.BizCrafterCorp.com ) or eCartSoft ( www.eCartSoft.com ) to build your site. Most of these programs will help you to build a simple, effective and familiar shopping interface that can include pictures, shopping cart functions and a number of useful security features.
In addition to helping you build an attractive online shop, most e-commerce software has features allowing it to help manage your inventory, interact with your payment processing systems, simplify your relationships with suppliers and affiliates and even promote your site.
E-commerce software can usually be purchased online from the maker, but is also quite often included as part of a specialized e-commerce package from any of the many Web hosts that support such operations.
Finding a Commerce-Friendly Web Host
Assuming that this is one of your first efforts at building an e-commerce Web site, it's a safe bet that you'll be outsourcing most, or at least some of the site's technical operations to a Web hosting company. This is by no means a bad thing, and in fact can free up your time and IT resources, allowing you to focus on the operations of the business itself.
More than simply freeing your time, however, many Web hosting companies have plans tailored specifically to the needs of customers developing or operating e-commerce Web sites. A few hosting companies offering enhanced e-commerce features include VIP PowerNet Web Hosting ( www.VIPWH.com ) , ValueWeb ( www.ValueWeb.com ) and Global Internet Solutions ( www.GISol.com ). These commerce-friendly hosting plans often include a software license for one of the storefront building programs with your monthly fees, as well as a number of other support services, designed to provide you with a secure platform from which to do business.
And while software and services may be convenient, there are other reasons why a host that understands e-commerce is critical to your business. A good e-commerce host will already have the means in place to secure your online transactions with protocols such as SSL. It may be able to process transactions for you, or help you set up a merchant account. And most importantly, it will have the service level guarantees suitable to the high demands of your e-commerce operation.
Of course, in addition to the products and services they provide, it's hard to argue against the value of experience. And a Web host well versed in e-commerce should be able to help you by answering whatever questions you may have.
Securing Information Using SSL
At the core of any e-commerce operation is the financial transaction between Web site and consumer. One of the most common methods for accepting payment from your customers is accepting the submission of credit card information online. But by accepting your customers' credit card information through your Web site, you are also accepting the responsibility for the security of that information.
The standard protocol for securing communications on the Web is Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). Developed by Netscape Communications Corporation, the SSL security protocol provides data encryption, server authentication, message integrity and client authentication for TCP/IP connections, allowing client/server applications to communicate in a way that prevents eavesdropping, tampering or message forgery.
SSL is built into all major web-browsing software, so simply installing a digital certificate on the server side of the communication will turn on the browser's SSL capabilities. The protocol is available in both 40-bit and 128-bit strengths, referring to the length of the session key generated by each encrypted transaction.
In order to establish an SSL session with a customer's browser, your server has to be able to generate a public key and a private key and have them authenticated by a certificate authority, such as VeriSign ( www.VeriSign.com ), Thawte ( www.Thawte.com ), Tucows ( www.Tucows.com ) or InstantSSL ( www.InstantSSL.com ). Your Web host may include an arrangement with one if these authorities, or may allow you to use its certificate.
Processing Transactions
Once your customer is willing and able to give you his or her credit card information, you still have to make arrangements to be able to process the transaction and receive your payment. Obviously, credit card processing is a complicated process, and a number of organizations can be involved, from both your bank and the user's bank to a credit card processing company and the credit card communications network.
Your involvement in the processing operation will vary according to how much of the responsibility you want to outsource. It can be as simple as employing a buy button solution hosted by a third party provider, where all you have to do is include a piece of HTML code on your site and the processing company will send you a check. But keep in mind that the more responsibility you take on yourself, the smaller percentage of your profits you'll have to hand over to service providers.
In a more hands-on solution, many of the storefront-building software solutions include tools and ongoing support services to handle payment processing functions. Your Web host may have already set up this sort of pre-arranged processing option. For storefronts not equipped to provide payment processing, there are service providers, such as IBill ( www.IBill.com ) or CCBill ( www.CCBill.com ), designed to do just that. These providers charge a scaling service that can reach as high as 15 percent, for their services. And these charges can be avoided by setting up your own merchant account.
If you decide to handle most of the processing yourself, saving many of the fees associated with outsourced payment processing, you'll have to enable your Web server and applications to send and receive information from the credit card network. In order to do this, you'll have to obtain your own merchant ID and terminal ID, numbers that will identify you and the source of your transactions. These IDs can be obtained from a merchant bank by applying for a merchant account enabled to receive payments by credit card. The merchant bank will have relationships with acquiring banks that can handle both credit card processing and Internet payments. Once the merchant bank supplies you with merchant and terminal IDs, you'll use these numbers to configure your payment software or provide them to your outsourced processor.
There are plenty of responsibilities beyond security involved in running an e-commerce Web site, not including managing the supply chain relationships and inventory and, of course, fulfilling your customers' orders. But, when dealing with the sensitive data involved in processing customers' credit card information, there can be no question that earning the trust of your customers through a comprehensive and responsible approach to security should be a primary concern.
Please refer following web sites for useful resources related to web site hosting:
http://www.vipwh.com
http://www.vippowernet.com
http://www.thehostingguide.com
About the Author
Paras Shah
Chief Technology Officer
VIP PowerNet, Inc.
Phone: (713)787-6501
Email: [email protected]
http://www.vipwh.com
CGI Web Hosting - 3 Essential Scripts for your Business
By John Michaels
If there's one thing that people love it is a web site that has plenty of automated features. Sites that are highly interactive tend to get the most traffic and generate the most business for the companies that run them. Automated features can also play a "behind the scenes" role, making your site easier to use, run smoothly and allow for things like online sales and password protection. There are many ways to get this type of automation into your site, but all involve either client side or server side scripting. Scripts are written in programming languages specially designed for the web, and there are several languages that are commonly used. Most client side scripts are written in Java which is still one of the best web programming languages around. Some functions of a web site must be completed via server side scripting, however, and the most commonly used languages for server side scripting are PHP, PERL, and CGI. PHP and PERL are newer languages and are gaining a lot of popularity, but there are still plenty of features that can be scripted in the granddaddy of web scripting languages, CGI.
Shopping Carts
No online sales site would be complete without a functioning shopping cart and most of the best ones have been written in CGI script. CGI web hosting is great for shopping cart scripts because it interfaces well with most databases, including the popular MYSQL and MS Access databases, it can be utilized on Windows, UNIX, LINUX, and MACOS servers with equal ease, and can be easily configured for sales tax and shipping cost calculations. Some newer shopping cart scripts are being written in PHP and PERL, but most of the functioning carts on the web are in good old CGI web hosting scripts.
Password Protection
Many web sites require some sort of registration and entry of a password for the user to access the site's features. This is done for a number of reasons from simply a desire to track visitors for marketing purposes to allowing postings on message boards and ensuring that users have paid any required fees associated with use of the site. The automated registration process and user name/password issuance can be written with CGI scripts and many of them have been.
Form Managers
Have you ever wondered how the forms you fill out online are handled? In most cases, they're handled by CGI web hosting. When a user fills in that form and hits the "submit" button, a CGI script takes over and sends the data in email or writes it to a database where it can be accessed later by the site's administrators.
These are just a few of the uses for CGI scripts on today's web sites. There are literally hundreds of others and if there's something that can be done on a web site, it is something that can be done with CGI. PHP and PERL may be gaining a lot of popularity for various reasons, but CGI was with us first and it isn't going anywhere. As long as there are web sites, CGI web hosting will remain king.
About the Author
John Michaels is a freelance author for WebHostPacks.com where he regularly publishes articles on how to find a cheap web host and reviews of low cost web hosting services.
Commercial Web Hosting - Business Considerations
By Brian Thorn
There are many reasons why choosing the right web host pack can be beneficial for your business. Most importantly, if you don't purchase a package that offers you all the things you need to run a business online, you won't be able to attract and retain a faithful client base. For example, one way an online business can benefit from the right web host pack is through the use of domain names. Some web hosts offer free domain names and for the blossoming online business, the right name is often very important.
.Remember that domain names are unique - no two web sites can have the same name (or the same address). If you have an idea for a great name for your domain and that name has not already been taken, you can register your name even before you are ready to set up your website. This process is called "parking" the domain name and it ensures that the name will be available when you are ready to start your website. Many web hosting providers include domain names as part of the web host pack. Taking advantage of such an offer is one way an online business can benefit from the right web host pack.
Security is another feature offered by web hosting companies and another example of how an online business can benefit from the right web host pack. In today's climate, computer hackers, viruses and worms are simply a matter of fact. If an online business cannot assure customers that it's safe to enter personal information on the company's website, there's likely to be few people who are willing to take the chance. Especially when it comes to financial information - credit card numbers and bank account information - security is vital. People who routinely shop online are usually careful to note the privacy policies and security systems in place before they order. While providing your own security is feasible, having a web host pack that includes a solid security system will help ensure that your company information and your clients' information is secure. After all, how hard would it be to regain trust if you had a major security breach?
Finding a web host that has a pack tailored to your needs is important. While it's probably going to be easy to find a company that offers web hosting that exceeds your current needs, it might not be feasible for you to take on that extra expense (especially during the business's infancy). For example, you might need only a single e-mail account, but with a large amount of disk space. The web host packs with enough disk space also have unlimited e-mail accounts. If you can find a company that will tailor a plan to your needs, that company might discount the monthly fee as long as you don't need additional e-mail accounts. If you do find a plan like this, remember to allow yourself room to grow in the future. Looking for tailored plans is just another way an online business can benefit from the right web host pack.
About the Author
Brian Thorn is an avid internet enthusiast who writes easy-to-understand articles about web hosting. Also check out: cheap web hosting package , internet service provider hosting and email domain hosting.
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