At its basic level, one can get shared hosting with MySql, PHP and shopping cart software (e.g. OsCommerce) for a few pounds a month.
However, it seems you are then running a business on a server you don't own or administer, which is housed in a data centre to which it is unlikely you have physical access to and which may not even be in the same country. This doesn't seem like a good starting point for disaster recovery.
Now, clearly (albeit for a lot more cash in business start-up terms), you can buy your own server and pay for it to be co-located near to your business office, which is better for obvious reasons.
Given the above basic scenario, if I can get e.g. (OsCommerce, Zen, Agora, etc) for free, why would I pay best part of a grand for e-Commerce software like, say, Erol
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Is it largely a matter of support?
What is the next step up the ladder in IT terms? I'm thinking that I want my master database to be sitting in my computer room at my business premises. I want my Product management, ERP, CRM, SRM, Logistics, Accounting, etc to be running locally irrespective of whether my ISP and/or hosting centre is up. I want the hosted web server to be a front end to the office-based system and if it (the hosted webserver) goes off line, I want to be able to log in to my DNS host and point my URL at a backup server in a different data centre and carry on where I left off.
The question is, can I do all this with an off the shelf e-Commerce package, or do I have to build a bespoke system?
If I started off with (say) OsCommerce running on a shared service, how simple would it be to migrate to the next level? Which is to say, can you suck out the entire contents of a MySQL database running on a hosted service and squirt it into your own database in your premises?
Any/all insights, comments or pointers to relevant web resources or e-Commerce providers gratefully appreciated.
Yep. That's what I do. Or here at home. I've got a linux server here and one at the company premises I am developing it all for.
I have written some synchronisation software. So I can bring parts of my test system up to date with the live system.
Its also used when a laptop is taken off line to become a portable sales terminal: on return to base it uploads its sales data to the main system.
Currently sales are handled by a Joomla and IIRC ZEn based system on a hosted server (I didn't write that), and web orders are entered manually. I hope to write the shop software after I have finished purchase order processing.
Like you, I came to the conclusions that the corporate database needed to be at corporate HQQ where it could reach printers and be blindingly fast when moving large amounts of data - in our case graphics files for box artwork, and CAD design - around.
The question of how to integrate that with a fast public web presence is then the $64,000 one. I did tests and showed that acceptable performance for everything but downloading videos and other marketing fluff, was possible over the 448k uplink speed of the companies broadband IF the thing was coded right. That is achieved by compressing the HTML pages. Only images are real dogs, and I solved that by rescaling them on the fly so that when you want thumbnails, only thumbnail sized images are sent.
It would be possible to run two databases and synchronisation software, and if the company ever gets to be a multi-million turnover beast, that's a way to go.
But right now I am concentrating on the back office. Sales and purchase order processing, stock control and manufacturing (BOM) and shipping.
I also have a crude (needs recoding) data library that allows our independent designers to upload data files to us, and manage their projects, and a fairly bombproof piece of complex code that strips the whole database of products that are flagged as 'for sale', and churns out a PDF catalogue of everything for sale. Or subsets thereof.
I have a very crude shop and main site prototype. But no shopping cart or auto-payment is yet written. That's scheduled for early next year.
Yup. I decided I didn't need that hosting centre at all. Backup here is done simply to a second mirror disk on the server. On the basis that apart from fire and theft, that covers gross hardware failures.
When the company moves in the new year, I'll probably do better than that. A second remote machine maybe.
I manage the machine remotely at the company premises..
I want the hosted web server to be a front
Have your second server at home. And synch it with the main one. However, be careful. Its a moot point as to which one is the master, and which the slave..
Frankly, since during normal office hours the main server and its broadband connection are always online and have to be for correct operation of the business, its no big deal to have it go down if the company loses power or broadband.
They cant process orders anyway if that happens, and most customers will 'try again later'. What is appropriate for amazon.com is not appropriate or necessary for 'bloggs-engineering.com'
You probably need my system ;-)
Its coded for efficiency over slow upload links.
Yes, in theory. It depends on speed etc.
And what code you are running.
To move a few transactions across is no big deal. BUT there are issues in synchronisation, as I found.
A typical one is sales order number. If you are both taking orders over the phone, and on a web site, the website wont know what the current order number is, so the order number the website sends back to the customer wont be the one it finally uses.
There is no real obstacle to having the hosted server contact and update your office database in real time, except of course for security. Of necessity the hosting server must be able to execute SQL enquiries on your in house system and know its passwords..not good if the hosting centre gets hacked. Ours was. Fortunately no data of interest was on it. And we had no back door to the database from it.
When I put that lot together, I decided that there was little point in having the hosting at all. The main site will ultimately be hosted on the company server. Any really large downloadable items - typically videos or catalogue PDF's - can stay up on the hosting companies machine and be referenced as external links from the main server.
So the better split becomes
Main server and database and website and e-commerce hosted at company premises
only big stuff that would smash the broadband link hosted centrally.
If you are interested in my system, I can give you a limited login to the test site.
Its about halfway along a three years part time coding track.
If you CAN code, PHP and so on, it might suit you.
Ultimately I want it to be a commercial product, but right now its a co-operative development effort.
Any good server company will have their own disater recovery systems in place, so you don't have to worry about it.
Only if you have staff available 24 hours a day to sort out any problems immediately they happen, which the server companies do.
ISTM to be more a question of reliability. I have a couple of sites running on Actinic, which, after many years of commercial development, is a very stable, reliable platform, but which is now lacking some of the functionality of more recent programmes. I have another on Magento, which is a free open source programme. That is a better programme for web site design, but there have been a lot of patches over the past year and it still has oddities. However, if you have a problem, somebody on the forum has probably had it before you and found an answer.
The thing to watch out for with a free programme is that some things you would expect to find as standard in a commercial programme are only available as add-on modules, which you usually have to pay for. Magento, for example, only comes with Sage Pay Forms and Sage Pay Server as standard. Forms is very limiting in design, while Server requires you to have very deep pockets to meet the highest level of the Credit Card Industry Data Security Standard. To use Sage Pay Direct, which allows freedom of design, while not passing any sensitive customer data through your computers, so you only need CCI DSS Level 4, you need an add on module which, IIRC was about £400.
If that happens enough to be a problem, change hosting centre. I've had one day without service in the past 4 years, although the contract allows for up to five day per annum. Mind you, I wouldn't rely upon the ecommerce programme for most of those functions anyway. There are much better accounting and management packages available, to which you simplydownload the data from the ecommerce programme.
Again, if you pay for hosting - you can hire your own dedicated servers
- this will happen without you even knowing.
Only if you have a lot of time to spend programming and don't really want to sell things.
If you keep to the same ecommerce programme, there should be no problem transferring data. However, exporting data from one programme to another is not IME anywhere near as simple as is usually claimed.
How are you going to accept payment? Pay Pal is horribly expensive but, if you go for credit card payments, even through a third party like Sage Pay, you have to meet the aforementioned CCI DSS, which involves being independently audited by an outside body. Don't worry too much about the prices quoted for that. Your card handling company will usually have negotiated a much better price on your behalf.
What sort of SSL certificate aare you going to go for? An ordinary one will cost less, but IMO extended SSL certificates are going to be the future. BTW don't be tempted to make your entire site with secure pages
- it slows it down a lot. Keep the secure pages for anything with customer data on it.
I also suggest you read the Business Link pages on ecommerce, which give you a lot of advice about running ecommerce and information about your legal obligations as a retailer.
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wll also need to be completely familiar with the Distance Selling Regulations.
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a server hosting company, I recommend Edge Hosting, whom I use.
It's just fine for many folk if you choose a reputable and well managed hosting company.
An expensive option, but leaves you in total control.
There are many, many professional sites out there running the likes of ZenCart.
Hosting support is extremely important. Not just the level of support but the quality of support (knowledge, skills etc). It is possible to get this level of support on a shared server similar to what you mention in your first para.
Certainly a good model - if you require that level of control and security. In this model you're pretty much emulating a hosting company yourself. You will require significant and broad systems skills though or have somebody close at hand that can support and maintain such a set-up.
Reading between the lines though an a suitable alternative may a localised system that pre-processes the data and automatically uploads to a suitable server. This allows you to have all your data (including database and design structure etc) in your office for safe keeping.
Also, keep your domain registration separate from your hosting company. That way if your hosting company should fold or you want to move to another host, you can do so easily and re-point the domain to the new host.
Take a look at
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to read about how this sort of model works. I have no connection with these folk and there will most likely be others.
Yes, you can do all of that allowing you have the necessary skills, or you have somebody else that can do it for you. Remember any fully online system will need to be regularly backed up and held safely (preferably downloaded to your own PC) for safe keeping. (as will a localised system, but you already have it in-house in this model).
The feeling I get is that you would like to keep most of everything in-house so I'd recommend reading up on the
Yup. People like 123 reg do similar prepackaged bundles with a set of predefined sites you can roll out.
I would second what the others have said about going for professional hosting services. We tried launching a financial services site with a small company once using a fairly sophisticated sounding shared platform (that offered redundancy and failover etc). The killer however was the level of support was not up to it. After that we went to Rackspace for a dedicated colo server, and have been with them ever since. They can build whatever you need, you have full root control over it, but can also have support do any jobs that you don't fancy etc. Plus its all
24/7 so there is always someone to contact.
again something you can negotiate with a hosting company. Sometimes things like speccing a second drive in the server that you keep a backup of everything on can work well enough - that can be swapped to another machine probably faster than DNS changes will ripple through.
What you describe sounds more like a bespoke system, but you can certainly assemble if from off the shelf bits.
It might be worth talking to a specialist in ecommerce solutions - "Grunf" formally of this parish springs to mind. I will email you his contact details.
Shifting data in and out is not difficult (although it does depend on how much there is). We routinely run a testing server on the end of a ADSL link for customers to verify the accuracy of their product representations, and then shift the whole DB to the operational server - but we are only talking a few meg here.
OK, Can you comment on what functionality is lacking? Also do you know if Actinic is addressing these issues or planning to address them in the near future?
I have another on Magento,
OK, Do you believe that Magneto will get there in time?
OK, I need to look into merchant services. This seems to be a big area these days (as in too many options/providers to choose between).
Just to clarify are you saying that Sage forms is that "clumsy" style of taking CC payment, where you checkout and then get sent to another website where they take payment and then direct you back to your website (or not if the server times-out as often used to be the case).
I haven't heard of extended SSL certificates. Thanks for the heads up, I'll look into it
When you say "hosting company" are you alluding to a server hosting company with bolt-on shopping cart or a specialist third-party e-commerce hosting/development/support company.
You
This is what I'm thinking. Not, perhaps in the first instance, but as the business grows.
Absolutely. I'm with you 100% on that as general good advice.
OK Colin mentioned Actinic as well. Clearly they are a front-runner in the UK?
Speaking of which, another thing that bugs me is how do people develop/test their websites? I always seem to end up developing my site "live", constantly FTPing revisions up to the public server and just adding links from existing content to the new pages after they are finished. Do people run their own webservers at home to test their sites?
Just speaking as a punter, I feel uneasy about spending money on websites where things look a bit clunky. An EBay shop or Amazon merchant may cost the seller more but what price do you put on customer confidence?
What I'm alluding to is a server hosting company that provide the facility (server, platform, connectivity, environment etc.) for you to deploy your own, or third party e-commerce application (ZenCart, osCommerse, etc.). The type of hosting company I'm talking of here would provide the facility, not the application. However other hosting companies will/may specialise in ALSO providing the e-commerce application - already deployed and ready for you to customise look and feel, and to begin adding your products. Personally I would be less inclined to go there as it is likely to be a proprietary application and, if they do collapsed you would possibly be difficult or impossible to find another suitable host where you could readily redeploy your backed-up store.
If you go down the 'hosting provision only' route and add the application yourself (ZenCart, osCommerce) making sure that you have a complete backup of the application when you have completed customising/developing it (I'm talking about all the application processes, templates, graphic files, CSS etc.) and save them locally as backups. Then take regular database backups (products, customer, etc.) - then in the event of the host collapsing, you would very quickly be able to locate another suitable (?) hosting company and redeploy your store from your original application files backup and your (very!) recent database backup. It should be fairly painless. Then point the DNS records to the new host.
Just as an aside - we keep naming open source (ZenCart, osCommerce), but there are many more, ranging from good to poor (and even obscure) - see
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for examples and references. There are also commercial e-Commerce apps very similar in concept to these with professional support -
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being one of them.
Well yes, for that type of model.
The essential difference between the Actinic (and there are others alike) and the server hosted types (ZenCart, osCommerce etc.) is that the Actinic type are essentially contained entirely on your own local system, whereas in the other model everything is located on the server - including the content management administration system. In the Actinic (type) model, You design your website on your own PC, and the Actinic system pre-processes the store according to how you have chosen to design and structure it - then uploads the product pages to the server [1] (along with some application process files) - this establishes your online store. The Actinic content management system remains on your PC where you add, edit, delete your products. Where you store your customers details, and where you make changes to the website design etc. Then by running an update process within the Actinic control centre on your own PC, any updates that you have made to your stock, or the design of the website, are transferred to the online server, and any new orders that have peen placed in your store are downloaded to your PC (Actinic management system).
In the event of a hosting company collapse, you simply upload the entire shooting match to another host, and do the necessary DNS changes.
[1] you still need to host the actual site somewhere, whether you arrange this in-house or have it hosted by an online hosting company.
Forget all the tech stuff or you'll be doing it forever. If you're a start-up, selling product, [forgive me Issac] but go "stand on the shoulders of a giant".
At the very least, you'll benefit from ebay's search engine optimisation, feedback buyer confidence etc.
In my case it depends on the type of site. If its just static (X)HTML then just previewing in the browser straight from Dreamweaver etc usually works fine. I have various plugins for Firfox to allow debugging of Jscript and css etc.
For more elaborate sites with server generated content, then I run a local copy of Apache (plus Tomcat if doing JSP) MySQL etc. I don;t generally do any testing "live" (and then its in a private non linked directory) until the site is nearing a more complete stage, and you want to test for differences that come from say switching from the Windows versions of the various server platforms to the *nix based ones.
Astrosell was a similar product a while back but I can't seem to find them now - :( Macromedia (did Adobe buy them over?) Drumbeat used to be another of that sort.
There is another one I would have mentioned but I just can't recall its name. If it comes back to me I'll post it.
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