Major steps to setting up an online store

Written by Secure Net Shop

E-commerce is the number one trend in modern society. The drive to create an easy friction-less purchase experience is driving every retailer to create online stores. This is happening across the globe as smartphone and credit card saturation is driving consumers online. Setting up a new web site shopping cart is not hard. Here is a brief step by step guide:

Plan

Take a bit of time and plan out the entire store. What products will you sell. What should the site and checkout interface look like? Look at existing sites for some inspiration.

Domain

If you do not already have a domain them buy one. There are many registrars online that will do the job. Specialized domains will only be available in certain sites. Take your time in this step as once you choose a domain, you cannot change it.

Host

Next up is to choose a host. Avoid the cheaper hosts and their promises of unlimited resources. These are never realistic. Instead look for a host that supports PHP and MySQL, those are the most likely services used by the most popular shopping cart systems.

E-commerce package

Here you can go with a hosted solution or script you purchase. The hosted solution can be more expensive and will usually involve a monthly fee or per transaction fee. It is more secure and does not involve and technical knowledge. The licensed scripts are cheaper, one-time fees but will require some setup work.

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Add the ability to sell goods or services from your website with ecommerce shopping cart software from Secure Net Shop.

Top considerations for colocation

Written by Rack Alley

The movement to the cloud, either by colocation or using an online virtual provider is accelerating. According to MarketsandMarket, a staggering 65% of company’s IT infrastructure will be off-site by 2018. This big trend is driven by the move from large capital expenditure to a less expensive opex model. For those interested in making the move, here are few considerations to take into account before taking the plunge.

Pricing is the biggest factor to take into account. Companies are typically looking to reduce costs as part of the move to a data center. One way to do this is to look at a usage-based pricing model and lower monthly fees. Lower power usage and risk mitigation are also ways to look at the cost benefit of server hosting Los Angeles.

Electricity costs are a saving that deserves a special mention. The National Resources Defense Council estimates that electricity consumption can be reduced by as much as 40% by moving all IT infrastructure off-site. This does involve the complete decommissioning of on-premise server rooms.

Another important consideration is the security of the Los Angeles data center. Third party data centers have strict protocols in place to access the systems. They will also include round-the-clock monitoring and physical security that will provide audit compliance along with piece of mind.

The biggest consideration is the change in attitude required. The organization has to change the way it looks at IT and services. There will need to be coordination between internal and external IT partners and all parties concerned will need to be prepared to handle that.

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Rack Alley provides premium LA web hosting services perfect for small and enterprise customers at their Los Angeles data center.