Web hosting for e-commerce

[biker-dj]

Hi everyone after a bit of advice - I shall try to keep it short. My wife is building an e-commerce website with a Paypal shopping cart but is unsure about the best hosting. Her 3 choices seem to be Webfusion, 1and1 and Fasthosts. She has used frontpage with extra scripting - not too sure which ones but basically mouse over and colour button change properties etc. The shopping cart as I said is Paypal not too sure which scripting they use . I know she needs a data management host and frontpage server extensions but then we get stuck. Someone even said we need a Linux host rather than Windows and thats totally thrown me. I hope this makes sense and if any replies could be in basic speak cos we are real newbies at this. Any help gladly appreciated
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[Mrs Kickstart]

Hi,

I use https://www.cheapnet.co.uk/ they offer both unix and windows servers. You will need a windows sever if you want to use front page extentions I think (I dont like it myself).


Regards

C
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[Dom]

Few points:

- If she's used frontpage and wants to upload the pages via that she will need a host which supports frontpage extensions (most main ones will). It does not have to be a Windows host for frontpage extensions to be supported.

- You mention 'extra scripts' such as mouseover/colour change... those will almost certainly be javascript which is a 'client side' language. What that means is the code is run on the computer of the person who views the page, not the server it is hosted on. So that should have no influence whatsoever on the host.

- I have just had a quick look at the Paypal shopping cart and it appears to be hosted entirely by them with the exception of two javascript buttons which the site owner adds to their webpage (one 'add to cart' for each product, one 'view cart'). As with the above, this shouldn't be a problem/influence on who hosts your site.

- You should not need CGI/PHP/ASP or any other 'server side' (opposite to client side - scripts run on the server itself) languages supported by the host... what that basically means is, again, the choice is yours.

Sounds to me like the net's your lobster... or something to that effect.
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[biker-dj]

Hi Dom
I've hijacked the laptop out from under hubby's nose in order to reply myself (I am biker-dj's OH), as your response has answered nearly all my questions, and I am SO excited! You've explained it to me it in layman's terms that I actually understand! I knew about the FP extensions bit, but was really confused about the javascript bits and the Paypal S/Cart. Someone told me I needed to create a Database (when I thought the Cart WAS my database, on analysing the html) and then someone else starting confusing me about needed MySQL, but I believe I this would be to hold data should I ever accept c/card payments other than via Paypal?
So which would you say is the better choice, Linux or Windows hosting? Linux was the way we were going to go. Also, have you had any good/bad reports about either Fasthosts or Webfusion, as these are what I've narrowed my choices down to. Thanks again for your quick, concise and very readable response.
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[Dom]

Glad to be of use.

I suspect people mentioned mySQL and things like that because they assumed you were installing your own shopping cart software which would store products in a database. Since what you're actually doing is making 'static' web pages manually with a 'buy now' link to Paypal, you won't be needing to worry about that.

So far as Windows/Linux, you are not likely to notice the difference. As a hosting platform personally I prefer Linux as I've always used it and it tends to be cheaper, but really you should be fine with either. I've never used Frontpage/Frontpage extensions myself, but any host that offers it (whether they're Linux/Windows) should support it and it should work fine.

Afraid I can't help you with either of those hosts, but what you could do is email all of the companies you're interested in with a question regarding hosting before signing up, and then go with whoever replies fastest. All of the companies you've mentioned are fairly large so you shouldn't suffer any downtime problems - it'd mainly come down to customer service (which once the site's setup you are not likely to ever need anyway).

Good luck with the site.
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[biker-dj]

Hi Dom
Thanks for that, you've made it all nice and clear and I am pretty sure I know who will be hosting my site now! All I need to do now is to work out how to configure the cart/site/whatever to tell my customers when an item is out of stock, as my items are one-offs and I don't want a dozen people trying to buy the same item! (I should be so lucky..!) I think I've almost got my head around it, been on that superfreaker site and have just signed up for Paypal Developer Central, but the scripting is quite tricky! Still, I like a challenge!

(biker-dj OH)
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