Click Here to Start an Amazon Type Store (Part 2)
Previosuly we concentrate on oscommerce customization. Its time to take care of some other things.
Web Hosting
There are plenty of web hosting companies therefore it is difficult for me to recommend one. You hosting company must provide following facilities
Minimum disk space: 2GB
Minimum monthly bandwidth: 15GB
Mysql databases: unlimited
Sub domains: unlimited
Cpanel or Plesk control panel
Php support
Email accounts: unlimited
Estimated cost: 12$ / 6 months
Domain Name
I don’t think so I need to write anything about it. Choose your favorite domain registrar and register a suitable domain for your store.
Estimated Cost: 8$
Caution: Some web hosting companies provides domain name along with a hosting account. Make sure you register domain name separately and you have complete over it. It’s your business asset take care of it.
SSL Certificate
SSL certificate protects customer’s personal and credit card information from stealing. It is a guaranteed way to secure online transactions. Visit following website to get more info about SSL certificate
http://www.rapidssl.com/ssl-certificate-support/ssl-faq.htm
You can get SSL certificate from many websites, interestingly there is a huge variation in price. Again, it depends on you how much you want to spend on it. As a beginner, don’t waste too much money on it. You can obtain SSL certificate from these websites. (Check out resources at the end of this article)
Imporant: No one will buy anything from your website if you don’t have a SSL certificate.
Estimated Cost: 29.95$
Credit Card Processing
Credit card processing is a very serious issue. Before selecting, a credit card processing company you must make sure that it is compatible with Oscommerce. If it doesn’t you will need an extra module (Freelancer will develop it) to embed payment processing facility in Oscommerce. By default, following payment processors are compatible with Oscommerce
Paypal
Paypal is the least expensive but it’s not universal. It supports only few countries; it’s a good idea to use it as your secondary payment processor not primary.
2checkout.com
2checkout.com is very easy to use and only cost one time 50$ fee. However, its customer service is disgusting.
Remaining payment processors are expensive and may not suitable for a beginner. My suggestion is to use either
2checkout.com or
Authorize.net
Estimated Cost: 50$-150$
contd….
Cheap Web Hosting Companies
http://www.infosamurai.com/v1/cheaphosting.htm
Lowest Domain Registration Prices
http://www.infosamurai.com/v1/cheapdomains.htm
Credit Card Processing
http://www.infosamurai.com/v1/cc.htm
