Opinions wanted! Best ecommerce hosting for small online store?

Must be too late for the small entrepreneur posters...
Guess I will have to bump it tomorrow.

Shopping cart is all that you'll ever need...no point in wasting money on both a shopping cart and a website software.

Therefore, I use x-cart... It has different levels of prices with different add-ons for each pricing.

Best part is, once you buy it, you own the software, so no monthly fees, which is AMAZING for a start up.

I bought mine for $600, and have been using it since... I've since then, of course, have bought add-ons along the way, such as new templates, etc. However, x-cart is all that you'll need to get your website up and running, besides a web-host and a merchant account, which easily inntergrates into x-cart.

Great community as well! They have programers on hand, or most of the time other x-cart users will just out right give you the codes for free if you ask for help, which is what most do anyways.

You can check out my old site at www.krazedwear.com We're currently working on the updated site for July.

Hope this helps!

I forgot to mention that if you do not have the money, or do not want to have to spend extra on a separate hosting company, x-cart will even host it for you, saving you even more money...

oscommerce is open source, and free.

oscommerce.com

Thanks! I will check them out!

there is also [link to www.zen-cart.com]

I like open source. Will certainly take a look.

Have used quite a bit of os software and loved it, but the instructions weren't dumbass friendly, even though some of the users in the forums tried to be.

It can get over my head pretty quickly these days and, worse, I'm insecure about the learning curve. lol It's been 10 years since I had a code clue and didn't consider myself 'knowledgeable' then.

Thanks y'all!
Gonna bail for the evening, but will check back in the morning.

Appreciate the suggestions and headed off to check them out.

Been setting up a Prestashop site for a friend recently, I like it more than the other shops I've had to set up. So far.

Shopify

very easy and monthly fee

I've done real well with FatCow for domain name and hosting. And I really like building my own sites. I'm working on my third as we speak.

As far as the ecommerce I deal strictly with paypal to process all sales.

I've done this with two of the three sites now and it's simple and worry-free.

One piece of advice - BE VERY CAREFUL WHO YOU USE TO PROCESS YOUR TRANSACTIONS!

Some of these shitbags are stone-cold thieves.

Last Edited by Mike Ehrmantraut on 06/23/2014 03:16 AM

Prestashop looks like it is pretty friendly for a set up. I hadn't seen that one.

Shopify... hmmm... seems to be a lot of added costs involved?

Thanks, R P McMurphy for the FatCow info... That's what I need! Information on actual hosting sites. Same on the payment info!

I figured PayPal would be a good starter, even though their fees are pretty steep. I've used them with eBay, and their 'household name' seems to inspire shopper trust. I haven't looked closely at the other options for credit card processing and won't be able to have a merchant account for direct cc payment for a while.
Any detailed opinions on payment methods will be most appreciated.


The hosts with lower pricing all sound great, but that old "you get what you pay for" sure is a consideration. Does anyone else have experience with some of the other low cost hosts? Tech support? Down time?

Last Edited by SouthernLight on 06/23/2014 10:48 AM

just a bump for visibility
and hopes for experiences with some of the options available

I new some good to upgrade magento or x-cart, do you need managed hosting or not?

Hi there! As for me, I use the VPS hosting from [link to www.bodhost.com] hosting service. It offers some nice plans for good money, and it is a very reliable one as well. Maybe you will find something for you there too

I like Magento platform for eCommerce. I've created a website using a template from [link to www.templatemonster.com] and now I want to host it. Which hosting would you guys recommend me?

If you are just starting out use Etsy and gain some experience in writing sales copy and taking product photographs.


I was making Oscommerce and Zen online stores 10 years ago, it is very out of date.


Magento is good, but it can be very slow. Even though it is open source it is very difficult to change and therefore expensive.


I'm moving my online stores from oscommerce to Opencart

[link to www.opencart.com (secure)]


This forum may help to

[link to www.webmasterworld.com (secure)]

Oh look its a thread full of good for nothing spammers!
Quick lets get them all at once while we can!

Get hosting in your local country.
Magento can be very slow, so use a company which specialises in Magento hosting (this can be expensive).

I saw some nice eCommerce web builders on [link to www.webbuildersguide.com] website. I want to use them for my projects, and I need some hosting too. It would be great if you recommended me one