Hosted solutions are pay-per-month ecommerce solutions where you get access to a web-based admin to access your store, and the hosting and physical elements of your site like security are taken care of by the hosted solution provider like us, Ozcart. Hosted solutions can help you have a secure, up-to-date platform for your online shop with accountability of service delivery and ready-access to support nearly at all times.
A hosted shopping cart solution has the following benefits over a do-it-yourself installed (self-hosted) cart:
- The cart is installed and ready for you to start working on your website’s design, configuring your shipping and payments, adding content and products, and then going live.
- You don’t have to buy your own server – you just pay from month to month for as long as you want your website. Your monthly fee includes the hosting of your website, access to the store’s admin, and support. That way, you worry a lot less about how to install a shopping cart, hosting, and updates.
- If you outgrow the package you are on, you can upgrade to another package relatively easily. With the latest version of Ozcart, for example, package changes within our new suite can be performed in minutes rather than days.
- The provider (us) takes care of security compliance. If you had your own website, do you have the time and money to constantly update your site to protect it against “cross-site scripting” or other hacking attempts? We would take care of that for you.
- You benefit from the experience of the provider in actively managing a large number of shopping cart websites. As bugs are fixed for one customer for example, you get them fixed for you too. As new features are added for one customer, they’re also added for you (unless it’s a specific customization for a client).
Hosted shopping cart solutions are an easy way to get started and a smart business decision in the long run, as the hosted ecommerce shopping cart provider continues to take care of the server side of things and you can focus on your business. Get the right online shopping cart provider and you may also get ongoing personalisation and customization from your provider as well.