E-commerce Hosting

E-commerce (also known as electric commerce) is the term applied to the process of buying and selling goods over the internet and forms of computer based network. In this modern day and age, most retails offer some sort of e-commerce solution to allow customers to purchase products online; E-commerce Hosting is also used by auction websites to allow users to sell their own products or items online. The e-commerce hosting process includes the purchase of a product, as well as the payment for it using electronic methods. Many banks are now offering services to allow large retailers to offer ecommerce hosting services to customers; this means that the number of retailers moving to sell their products online as well as in the shop is growing.
Although the internet may be dominated by large online retailers who have developed their own e-commerce websites. However, for smaller retailers there is still a chance with ecommerce hosting since there are many freely available e-commerce programs that they can use to help develop an online shop for their business. There also a number of websites known as ‘payment gateways’ that smaller retailers can use to process payments for any products that are purchased through their online shop, meaning that they are able to have the whole ‘e-commerce experience’. Identifying the right ecommerce hosting program for you needs is important, since there are many different ones available, some of which may meet your criteria in some areas where others do in other areas.
If you are hosted on a cPanel website hosting package, then the likelihood is that you have access to the Fantastico script auto-installer. If you don’t feel that you have the necessary knowledge to install an ecommerce hosting package, then you should have a look to see if any of the e-commerce programs that are provided with Fantastico fit your needs. If you feel that you don’t have the knowledge to install an e-commerce package for your website and are hosted on a different sort of website hosting package or don’t have access to the Fantastico script auto-installer, you should contact your web host’s install team since in most cases they should be able to install the package for you.
We will now go through the most popular ecommerce hosting packages that are freely available for use, meaning that you can get your online shop started with zero cost, apart from the cost of the web hosting package you are using.

OSCommerce

OSCommerce is one of the better known and popular ecommerce hosting packages freely available on the internet. It is estimated that there is currently over 14,000 live OSCommerce stores on the internet, and well over 4,000 plugins meaning that you will never be short of options to customize your OSCommerce store with. It has been written using the PHP scripting language and uses MySQL as its database backend, meaning that it is compatible with almost any hosting situation; this allows it to be hosted on a Linux cPanel hosting server as well as a Windows hosting server. For those hosted on a Linux cPanel server who feel they don’t have the necessary knowledge to install OSCommerce, it can be easily installed from the Fantastico script auto-installer.

OSCommerce comes with the ability to display your online shop in several different languages, allowing you to attract foreign customers as well as native customers. Other regional tools include the ability for the prices of your products to be displayed appropriately in different currencies.
On installation, the database is automatically filled with example text and products so that you get an idea of how the program functions before you proceed to listing your own products or changing any of the settings.

One of the main features of OSCommerce is its ability to allow your customers to manage their customer account that they have with yourn online shop, meaning that they can track any orders that they’ve placed both current and previous.

Zen Cart
Like OSCommerce, Zen Cart is a freely available open source online shop/shopping cart system that you can deploy on your website quickly and easily from the Fantastico auto-installer if you are on cPanel website hosting. Like OSCommerce, it allows you list your products and services and facitlitates functions to allow you to integrate it with any subscriptions to third party payment gateways you may have. It has also been built using the PHP programming language and uses MySQL as its database backend; like OSCommerce, it means that it can be hosted on both Linux and Windows hosting platforms that have the necessary server components installed to accommodate PHP and MySQL.

Zen Cart is also fully customizable design wise, meaning that if you already have a rather popular website, you can cash on this buy adding an online shop which visitors can then use to purchase your products and services. It also means that you can keep the design of your online shop inline with that of your existing website.

Zen Cart also has full support for coupons and gift certificates, meaning that if you want to, you can run special offers on your online shop to intise in more customers and to clear stock that you no longer need.
Cube Cart
Cube Cart is also an e-commerce solution that is included with the Fantastico script auto-installer and is built using the PHP scripting language with a MySQL backend, again making it a cross-platform option for those who want to add an online shop to their website. Cube Cart is also customizable design wise, meaning that you can easily blend it in with your existing website if needed, so that your visitors don’t notice any difference between the two. Its main features include the ability to feature one of the products that you have in your catalog as well as multi-currency support and other regional tools.

If you use a courier service that provides you with a tracking service, then you can add the tracking code into the account of the customer concerned to allow them to track their order, giving you one less thing to worry about whilst you are running your business. Support for photo galleries is also included so that you can add multiple photos of one product if you wish.
Conclusion
In conclusion, if you are a small retailer looking to starting your own online shop, then there are many Ecommerce Hosting solutions that you can install yourself using the Fantastico script auto-installer if you are on cPanel website hosting. All the applications discussed are cross-platform and free meaning that you can freely use them on any operating system that you can install PHP and MySQL on for use with a web server.