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 dont 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. Its your business asset take care of it. SSL Certificate SSL certificate protects customers 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, dont 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 dont 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 doesnt 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 its not universal. It supports only few countries; its 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.... |