Which Hosting is Best for Online Stores

Every business aims to expand and reach more and more customers in order to increase its customer base and in turn earn more revenue. The advent of the Internet has contributed significantly to ensure that this is made possible for businesses, at minimum cost, and without setting up physical stores in each and every location of the world. How? Welcome to the world of online shopping, which is gaining not only more and more acceptance globally but also popularity due to the convenience that it offers.

All you need is to sit in the comfort of your home and browse the online store of your choice, for as long as you need to, in order to find and buy what you require. There is no need to spend hours in the traffic congestion on roads or worry about the operational timings of the store that you are planning to visit. You can shop even past midnight or at the break of dawn at the push of a button by browsing online stores. Shopping couldn’t have been made more convenient than this! Let us explore more.

Online Stores for the Convenience of Shoppers

Bill Gates had said, “We are changing the world with technology”. The way technological advancements, especially the use of the Internet, is changing and impacting our lives is visible in all aspects of life. One such example is the proliferation of online stores on the World Wide Web. As per a certain published report, over 2.14 billion people throughout the world are expected to purchase goods and services online, in the year 2021 alone. This makes it evident that more and more buyers of goods and services prefer to visit online stores than the physical counterparts of the same.

For the benefit of the uninitiated, online stores are meant for making the shopping experience more comfortable and convenient for the shoppers by providing the opportunity to carry out shopping online. Online shopping refers to a form of electronic commerce, wherein buyers can buy goods and/or services directly from the sellers over the Internet by using web browsers or mobile applications and subsequently visiting the websites of the retailers. Online stores let buyers browse a range of products and services, for which images are displayed along with product-specific information, such as features and prices. This helps the consumers in making the right choice with regard to shopping decisions.

In online shopping, a buyer either searches for the product or products of his interest using a search engine or visits the site of the retailer directly for this purpose. This type of shopping can be carried out with the aid of a range of devices, such as laptops, smartphones, desktop computers, tablets, etc., which are connected to the Internet. Online buyers need to have access to the Internet to shop online and should be equipped with at least one valid method of payment, such as functional credit/debit cards, PayPal, etc. Often online stores provide the option to make cash payments at the time of the delivery of the product. Once the purchase is made, the product is delivered to the buyer, who had already submitted his personal details, such as address and contact number, etc. on the web pages designed to collect such information. In this way, online stores make the entire experience of shopping extremely convenient for the shopper.

Businesses also benefit by opting for selling their products and services online. Online stores help businesses cut down their investments with regard to setting up physical stores in different locations as well as maintaining these stores and paying salaries to the staff that needs to be present at the store and needs to be trained as well as other operational expenses that are involved. Another benefit is the opportunity to earn revenue 24*7, as online stores are always available for shopping, whereas physical stores have fixed operational hours. Last but not least, online stores can easily help acquire global customers as these can be accessed by anyone from anywhere in the world who has access to the Internet. Thus, online stores prove to be beneficial for both buyers and sellers and this is the reason that their popularity is on the rise. Some of the major players in this arena are Amazon, eBay, Alibaba, etc. These days almost every brand and most of the businesses have their online stores to reap the benefits of this lucrative opportunity.

It needs to be mentioned here that every online store, just like any other website, needs to opt for the service of web hosting in order to be accessible online. The service of website hosting is provided by web hosting service providers, such as HTS Hosting, through a wide range of web hosting services and plans. These plans are designed with features that cater to the specific hosting requirements of different types of online stores and are priced differently.

Let us delve into some of the requirements, in the context of web hosting, with regard to online stores. Knowing and understanding the main hosting requirements for shopping sites, regardless of their type, will aid in choosing the most appropriate web hosting service for online stores, which are meant for the convenience of shoppers.

Important Factors to Consider while Choosing Hosting for Online Stores

Almost all of us have bought something from an online store or at least browsed one. Are we not looking for such shopping sites that are reliable, always accessible and load quickly as well as where we feel confident enough about the site’s security to enter our personal information? This, more or less, sums up the main features that are needed in the hosting service that should be availed by an online store. Any appropriate web hosting solution for a shopping site should offer the following features-

• Seamless accessibility

• Sufficient bandwidth

• Fast page loads

• Secure service

The aforementioned features are needed to offer the best user experience of the site and ensure that the site visitor revisits the site. Add to it, the availability of 24*7 technical support, data backup service, user-friendly control panels, and affordably priced plans and that sums up the main features that every owner of such sites is looking for. All reliable and professional web hosting companies, such as HTS Hosting, which is globally popular as the best Website Hosting Company, provide hosting plans that offer all the features that are required for the efficient functioning of online stores. Why are these features important? Let us shed light, individually, on the need for each of these features in any effective hosting plan for online stores.

Every online store is expected to be accessible 24*7. Moreover, these stores receive multiple visitors that browse the site simultaneously and these visitors will often buy products and services on the site at the same time. That is why online stores need to be always up and running and need to have availed such hosting plans which are fully-equipped to cater to their bandwidth requirements and ensure their seamless functioning. For this purpose, such hosting plans should be chosen which offer high uptime and sufficient bandwidth.

An online shopping site needs to prioritize not only the security of the site but also of the web hosting service that it avails. The importance of security cannot be overemphasized when it comes to online stores. That is because the buyers will provide their personal details on the site, especially on its payment web page, for buying products and services from the online store. A secure site and secure hosting service ensures that any personal information does not fall into the wrong hands. This prevents the misuse of the site visitors’ confidential information and helps in instilling trust in the buyers with regard to the reliability of the site when it comes to shopping on it.

Did you ever have to wait endlessly for a site to load? Then you will surely appreciate the importance of fast page loading time, especially for online stores, which are vying with each other to increase their online customer base. The Google recommended page load time for e-commerce sites is under two seconds. Fast speed is one essential feature; the presence of which should be ensured in your hosting plan. In order to offer a positive user experience of your online store and to ensure site revisits, you need to avail such a web hosting service that offers fast speed. When your online store’s web pages load quickly, it succeeds in offering an excellent user experience to drive more traffic to your site. In this regard, it is recommended to choose a web hosting plan that offers SSD (Solid-State Drive).

Last but not least, look for a web hosting service that offers data backup facility for the security of your site’s valuable business data as well as round-the-clock expert technical support to resolve technical issues without much delay, so that your online store is up and running seamlessly and remains accessible for revenue-generation at all times. The availability of user-friendly control panels and a wide range of affordably-priced hosting plans to choose from, should also be considered, as any reliable hosting provider will deliver these features.

When it comes to the type of hosting solution that you should opt for the optimum functioning of your online store, always opt for either dedicated hosting or VPS hosting or cloud hosting. That is because these types of hosting solutions are designed to meet the specific hosting requirements of shopping sites, which have been mentioned before, by offering enhanced speed, security and ensuring top-tier performance.

Conclusion:

To recapitulate, online stores need to be available seamlessly and should be accessible safely and at fast speed in order to ensure the best user experience of the site as well as site revisits. Hence, the web hosting service that should be availed for online stores should be purchased from a reliable and professional service provider, such as HTS Hosting, and should offer all the features that have been mentioned. Additionally, it is recommended that online stores opt for either dedicated hosting or VPS hosting or cloud hosting plans.

In the light of the aforementioned web hosting features, any type of online store will experience phenomenal service and top-tier site performance at budget-friendly prices by availing the web hosting services of HTS Hosting. HTS Hosting, which is a globally popular service provider for all types of hosting services for Linux and Windows, operates from its state-of-the-art data centre that houses its powerfully configured servers.

The hosting offered by HTS, through its wide range of hosting plans, at massively discounted prices, ensures seamless, fast and secure availability of all types of websites, including online stores of every type and size. The affordably priced web hosting plans of HTS Hosting offer high uptime, uninterrupted site availability, user-friendly control panels, substantial bandwidth, powerful security, fast page loading, data backup service and much more and include SSD as well as provide outstanding service and round-the-clock technical support. Its feature-rich, low-priced hosting plans are meant for the convenience of the website owners of online stores as well as excel in providing excellent user experience to the site visitors of e-commerce sites.

Source:https://www.htshosting.org/knowledge-base/web-hosting/318/which-hosting-is-best-for-online-stores