How to Setup an ECommerce Webshop - I

You've made the decision to set up your own Webshop and you've got the products that you want to sell but how do you go about it? Where do you start?

There are several different aspects that you need to consider, the main ones are -

1. Domain Name

To go back to basics a domain name is the name by which your site is known on the web, when you type in the www address of the website that you want to visit you are typing in that site's domain name.

To have your own Webshop you must first purchase your own domain name, then you need to associate that domain name with a physical ip address on the internet, which leads me nicely onto.

2.Hosting the Site

The software for your Webshop needs to physically reside on a computer which can be accessed via the internet, once you've chosen your software it needs to be running 24 hours a day on a computer somewhere.
Here you have the choice of whether you run your Webshop on a dedicated server or you can share space on a server with other websites. But whatever you choose you also need to be able to associate your domain name with the physical (ip address) of your server i.e. the dns settings, this would normally be managed by whoever registered the domain name for you but you do need to be careful with this as it could badly affect the smooth running of your Webshop, its really important that whenever somebody types in your domain name (url) that your website is ALWAYS available.

You also have the choice of whether to run on a Linux Server or a Windows Server, in general there are more options available for Linux and as another generalization software for Linux is available at a lower cost than Windows software, but as in all things though there are exceptions and there is some very good windows software available at competitive prices.

You also need to make sure those things like database backups are taken care of and that you can load site certificates etc.