Online stores are multiplying at an exponential rate in recent years. On top of this, the pandemic has acted as a catalyst in this rapid transition. As the number of stores is rising, so are the expectations of potential customers.
Apart from offering great products, the need to delight your customers & keep them coming back has become crucial. A flawless & memorable buying journey, with simple yet efficient Cart & Order management and Payment processing, is equally important. So if you are planning to enter the e-commerce market, you must come all-gun blazing!
There are a lot of things that go into building a robust eCommerce store. This includes selecting the right domain name, store designing & development, optimizing your store for voice & text search and efficient Maintenance.
One such critical step that Business owners & entrepreneurs often overlook is selecting the right Hosting for an eCommerce website. As there are thousands of options available in the market, the task can indeed be a daunting one.
New-comers often get confused with extensive marketing & big promises from eCommerce Hosting providers and make the mistake of choosing the wrong plans.
If you, too, are new to the Business, there are multiple points that you’ll have to keep in mind before choosing an eCommerce hosting plan. Price-tags can often be deceptive & you might end up with cheap but practically useless ones.
So after extensive market research, we have come up with a detailed guide for choosing the right eCommerce platform for your online store. In this guide, we have explored the need for an efficient eCommerce Hosting Plan, which you should keep in mind while choosing a hosting plan a list of the few best Hosting for e-commerce plans in the market.
So let’s get started.
Table of Contents
Why you need a robust & Scalable eCommerce Hosting Plan?
The Efficiency of your eCommerce website depends a lot on your Hosting Plan. When it comes to hosting plans, you’ll get a lot of options. The plans are generally divided as Basic, Advanced, & Pro.
Of course, Basic plans are highly affordable; they come with limited features. The basic plans are suitable for beginners; they might pose severe challenges once the Business grows. Although it is possible to change your Plan or even your eCommerce Hosting Provider, the process is complex. So it is always wise to invest some more bucks in the beginning.
Would you private risk data-leak of your valuable customers from your eCommerce Platform?
Any such leak will leave a major dent in your Brand’s reputation and might impact your Business. So we recommend going to the best from the start.
Now, let’s look at some crucial points to keep in mind while choosing the right eCommerce Plan.
1. Top-notch Performance
Speed and Efficiency are essential for any successful eCommerce store. Your website should be able to handle a massive influx of customers & a must-have load time below three seconds.
Multiple types of research suggest that if your website takes more than 3 seconds to load, your potential customer will bounce off to your competitor.
If your website cannot handle more traffic, load & process your order quickly, it can break your Business. And even if it doesn’t, there will be no room for growth.
So when you choose Hosting Plan for your eCommerce platform, make sure it has the following feature.
- Dedicated Memory for storing more data & dedicated CPU for lightning-fast processing
- High-Speed loading capability with minimal load-time
- A Dedicated system for process & handling orders to ensure the customer doesn’t have to wait too long.
2. Easy Setup
Opt for the Hosting Plan that offers ready-to-use themes with a one-click store setup. This will eliminate the need to hire an expensive eCommerce store designer & developer & help you save a lot of bucks.
Said this, it is also critical that your eCommerce hosting plan should also come with some customizable features. So if you want to trim your store as per your unique business needs, you can do so easily.
3. Robust Security
No matter what you are selling, the privacy & security of your customers come first. Any security breach & your ratings will dwindle immediately, denting your Brand’s reputation. Such breach might compel even your loyal customers to ditch you instantly.
So always look out for the hosting plans that offer robust security. eCommerce Hosting plans with SSL protection should be given preference. But the story doesn’t end here. Along with SSL protection, opt for HTTPS over HTTP as it offers more security & protection against any potential data breach.
Hackers generally target the pages where the customers submit their personal information. So ensure these pages on your website have maximum protection.
E.g., the WP Engine eCommerce hosting plans offer platform-level security protection to detect & block threats, free SSL certificate, Multi-factor password authentication, auto-updates & WordPress optimized WAF features.
These features make WP Engine’s eCommerce hosting plans our primary choice.
4. Simple & Efficient Admin panel
Admin panel is an interface that allows you to manage your online store from the backend. You can add products, remove them, start giveaways, and launch campaigns and much more from an admin panel.
But to do so efficiently, it is vital that you chose a Hosting plan that offers a Simple & Efficient admin panel. An ideal Admin Panel should be highly interactive, must offer you access to everything that is happening on your online store and all this without too much technical expertise.
Avoid falling for Hosting plans that offer an Admin panel with too many features. It might feel too cluttery in 7 complexes, making it nearly impossible to handle it without a dedicated Server Administrator.
5. CMS-compatible plans
CMS is an excellent way to manage your eCommerce store. So it is imperative that you chose an eCommerce hosting plan that is CMS-compatible. So when you are looking for an eCommerce hosting plan, make sure you do not forget to look into this matter.
We found many hosting companies that offer CMS-compatible plans like wp Engine, Bluehost, & Go Daddy during our market research.
But we would recommend wp Engine as it has loads of features like auto-WordPress installation, CMS system, Mobile optimized website builder, & thousands of themes for your store.
6. Datacenters of Service Providers
Checking on the number of Datacenters & their geographical location of your eCommerce Webhosting provider is always a good idea. Let us tell you why.
eCommerce hosting providers always store your website’s data at more than one location in their dedicated Datacenters. This is done as a redundancy plan. If one centre is compromised, your data stays safe. So the more number of Datacentres your service providers have, the more secure your data is. So even if your website crashes & one Datacenter is compromised consecutively, you can easily get your website up & ready within minutes.
Geographical location also plays a critical role in offering a seamless user experience. If the Datacenter is far away from your audience, Content-delivery can be delayed, resulting in a higher bounce rate.
So always chose a service provider that has multiple Datacenters near your target audience.
7. Cutting-edge Hardware
The digital landscape changes daily. The technology that was efficient yesterday can become completely obsolete today. So the Datacenter you choose must have cutting-edge hardware.
8. Ensure Higher uptime
No business wants a website that’s going down few hours every day, right? If your online store keeps on crashing, customers will stop visiting you & ultimately, you will find it difficult to get even a few customers.
So before you chose any eCommerce Hosting plan, check on the uptime they offer. Compare multiple services providers & choose the one that offers maximum uptime so you don’t lose valuable customers.
9. Flexibility & Scalability
Online stores often face troubles once they outgrow their existing hosting plans. Changing hosting plans or hosting providers in the later stage can be a headache, So we recommend choosing a fully scalable eCommerce hosting plan, like the one offered by wp Engine, that scales with your Business.
Moreover, it should be fully flexible so you can add or remove multiple pages or features on your online store without a fuss. It makes the development & maintenance tasks much simpler, giving you more time to focus on your core Business activity.
10. Reliable Customer Support
Last but the least, Customer Support is the key. Your host should be available for you round the clock whenever you need any assistance for them. 24×7 human support is preferable as you do not want to depend on pre-recorded generic solutions. Multi-channel support through call, email or chat should be a better option.
Some eCommerce Hosting providers out-source their tech support. Please stay away from such companies as their support is not reliable & might impact your business adversely.
List of top eCommerce Hosting providers
After much analysis, we have prepared a list of the top 3 eCommerce Hosting providers covering almost every point mentioned above. Let’s take a look at this list.
WP Engine
Undoubtedly, the WP engine is at the top of our list. This comprehensive eCommerce solution offers everything you will need to build your WordPress store or migrate from your WooCommerce store.
Their integrated platform is versatile & optimized for WordPress & WooCommerce stores, streamlining the process of store creation. With its beautiful, simple & efficient Admin panel & interface, you can create a stunning online store within minutes!
Reasons to choose WP engine
1. Easy to setup
You can set up your online store using the WP engine with few clicks! There are thousands of attractive & enticing themes available for your unique Business, offering you an element of choice.
The best part is, you don’t even need to have a piece of coding knowledge. Select your theme, add features you want & your fully optimized store is ready to roll.
2. Lightning Fast
The better performance brings more customers, and that’s exactly what the WP engine is designed for.
WP engine hosts your store on a market-leading hosting set-u;p optimized for speed, agility & performance. Their dedicated Hosting is bound to boost your website’s speed by almost 40%.
3. Instant Store search facility
This feature makes shopping super easy for your shoppers. With features like Autom-complete & “Did you mean…” for every search query, it offers a flawless shopping experience to your users, boosting your conversion rate.
4. WordPress optimized
WP engine’s hosting plans are optimized for Word-Press. As 47% of websites ate built on WordPress, the WP engine is the best option to go with.
5. Easy migration
WP engine’s migration plugin makes the task of migration as easy as a walk in the park. All you have to do is, install their plugin into your existing store, authorize the migration & everything will be done automatically, no fuss at all!
6. Freedom
WordPress is an OpenSource platform; you own your website & data; you are not bound with a single hosting provider & can migrate whenever you wish.
7. Affordable pricing
WP engine offers world-class features and that too at highly competitive & affordable rates. So whether you are a budding business or an established one, WP engine has a fully tailored plan for you!
Bluehost
Bluehost is a renowned name in the Hosting industry. They are in Business for many years & have firmly established their position as one of the best eCommerce Hosting providers. The most amazing part of their service is bare minimum downtime.
On average, they have just 1 hr & 45 mins of downtime throughout the year! So if you want maximum uptime, nothing comes close to Bluehost.
They have multiple plans suited for Established Businesses & newbies alike. Their mid-tier plans are both affordable & sufficient for new Businesses. They also come recommended from WordPress itself, making it one of the most preferred hosting platforms. If you are setting up a WordPress website, Bluehost will make your job super easy!
Reasons to choose Bluehost
1. Seamless WordPress integration
As WordPress recommends them, it makes them a good choice. Their services are designed around WordPress, and this makes the developer’s tasks super fast & easy.
2. Minimal Downtime
As mentioned earlier, this is the cherry on the top. Only WP engine comes close to Bluehost is offering Minimal Downtime, which is 1 hour & 45 minutes. Lesser downtime means more Business & more profit.
3. Affordable
Although feature-loaded, Bluehost offers multiple affordable plans for businesses of all size. Whether you are starting a new business or have an existing one, Bluehost has an affordable plan for you.
4. Excellent Support
We noticed that Bluehost’s support services were matched by those of the WP engine and no one else during our analysis. With a dedicated team with experience & multi-channel support, you can reach them whenever you need help.
A2 Hosting
A2 Hosting is well known for offering lightning-fast speed through their SSD storage space & unmetered connections. As we mentioned earlier, speed is critical for eCommerce platforms. Research suggests that even a couple of second’s delay can push your conversion rate down by 15%.
So if you are looking for a hyper-speed hosting provider, you can go for it. They have an eCommerce-specific Plan too, which is specially designed & optimized for online stores.
Reasons to choose A2 Hosting
1. Hyper-fast
Backed with SSD storage & cutting-edge tools, A2 Hosting offers the ultimate speed in the industry. The company claims their solutions offer around 20x more speed than their
competitors.
2. Multiple SSL certificates
Another reason to choose A2 is their security. You can choose multiple SSL certificates that are available with them for better security. The best part is they offer a free Let’s Encrypt certificate with all their plans.
3. 24×7 Support
A2 offers round the clock customer support that can come in handy when you are facing any troubles. Their technical experts are always available online to ensure minimal downtime to your website.
4. eCommerce-specific plans
They offer specialized plans for eCommerce websites. So if you want a dedicated plan, A2 Hosting is a good option.
Conclusive thoughts
Choosing the right eCommerce hosting plan is vital for the success of your online store. As every business is unique in its own way, it is important to choose the plan that perfectly suits your Business. You’ll have to define your goals, whether it’s the speed you need or maximum up-time or redundant data backup.
After our thorough analysis of various Hosting plans, we found WP engine’s eCommerce hosting plan as the most efficient & reliable. It covers all the major components that are vital for a successful eCommerce store. Their plans are affordable, services are fully customizable & they offer maximum up-time.
No doubt, if we have eCommerce or any other website that drives too much traffic there definitely needs some special hosting personally, I like Bluehost.