You Want To Sell Stuff?
It is assumed here that you are not Amazon.com. This is basic information for a small business that has outgrown eBay or Etsy or wants an alternate sales path free of commission. Web stores are databases tied to credit card machines. Think of FileMakerPro attached to an ATM.
TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS FOR HOST SELECTION
You will remember from the Thumbnail Guide to the World Wide Interwebs that the internet is a giant city of trailer parks in the sky and your host is the specific trailer park where your website lives. You will also remember from the Thumbnail Guide to Hosting there are some things to look for in a host.
Web stores require you to think about a few things in order to build a store properly. The trailer park owner has to be zoned for a retail establishment and speak databas-ese. (SQL Support) Your trailer needs doors and those doors need locks. (SSL Certs) The trailer shouldn’t double as your personal residence and you definitely can’t have roommates. (Dedicated IP) It’s good to be on a main road. (C-Class IP) It’s good to have more than one driveway in case one gets blocked. (Cloud Hosting) It’s good to have plenty of parking. (Bandwidth) It’s good to have the park owner that keeps up the flower beds, shovels the sidewalks and helps out. (Current Software and Patches, Fantastico, Softaculous or similar scripts library, 24/7 Tech Support.
What about safety? What are all these SSL Certificates all about? (Click to find out!)
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