5 Best Web Hosting for eCommerce Website in 2023

Advantages & Disadvantages of having an Ecommerce Hosting

When you have an eCommerce website, getting an eCommerce specific hosting is the best option you can choose.

In this section, we will highlight some of the advantages and disadvantages of having an eCommerce hosting.

Like we said earlier, when you’re running an eCommerce website, you need to have many features that allow you to run your business smoothly. And, having an eCommerce hosting makes it all easier for you to set up.

Optimized for high-performance

Scalability is a crucial factor for your eCommerce website in terms of handling a surge of traffic. If your brand is established, you will have multiple audiences visiting your website every minute.

And your site’s servers should be able to handle it. If not, your web servers will be down and your site will stop working.

Now imagine you’re running a huge sale and your audiences are not able to purchase. This can result in many losses for your business.

An eCommerce hosting is designed to deal with traffic surges and provide a smooth process for your audience at all times.

Secure transactions

One of the most important parts of running an online store is the site’s safety and security.

Compared to a typical blog website, an eCommerce website stores more delicate information like customer details, payment details, personal info, etc. And this information needs to be kept safe to protect your business and its audiences.

Disadvantage(s) of getting an eCommerce hosting

But considering the importance of having a high functionality eCommerce website, the slightly higher hosting price is justifiable.

This isn’t exactly a disadvantage but a higher hosting price might be hard for businesses struggling with a tight budget. But, if you’re anything like us, you would also choose your website’s scalability and fast performance over spending a few extra bucks.

“Is eCommerce hosting really for me?”

“Should I purchase an eCommerce hosting instead of a general web hosting?”

Who wins the popularity contest?

While Shopify is probably the first name most people think of when they hear “ecommerce”, it’s not actually the biggest ecommerce platform out there, and the actual leader of the ecommerce space is WooCommerce (chart by Visualizer).

Does this mean that WooCommerce is, perhaps, indeed the best platform of them all to make your ecommerce plan a reality? Things might not be that simple.

Regardless of what I’ve just said, pointing out the winner of the popularity contest isn’t actually as straightforward as it may seem. While WooCommerce indeed is the most widely used and biggest ecommerce platform out there, is it also the most popular among the cool kids?

Having a quick glance at Google Trends over the past 5 years- which I admit isn’t a 100% spot-on source of insights – we can see a couple of interesting things:

When we zoom out a bit, we can see that the ecommerce space has been dominated by Magento for the better part of the decade, with Shopify being able to overtake it around ~2014 and WooCommerce pulling ahead of Magento in ~2017. Magento’s position might look surprising to you if you’ve been in this space for a couple of years only, but it’s in fact been one of the top enterprise ecommerce platforms out there – if not the very top one, and surely among the biggest ecommerce platforms available.

* We didn’t include Wix eCommerce because it’s impossible to differentiate between people searching for the general Wix website builder and its ecommerce functionality.

Okay, but what does this tell us?

Everyone has their own way of looking at Google Trends, but the thing to keep in mind is that Google’s “interest over time” metric only relates to search term popularity – as in, how often people search for something – it does not reflect, however, what happens afterward, or which one is the best ecommerce platform.

The only thing it basically says – at least how I see it – is how popular the idea of something is on the web. Shopify just gets more and more popular in this regard constantly. They promote themselves in multiple places, new people get exposed to the brand every day, and they then research Shopify on the web. Undoubtedly, Shopify wants to be the biggest ecommerce platform on the market.

It doesn’t make Shopify the best ecommerce platform out there, but it surely makes it one to pay attention to and examine more closely. Which we’ll do.

You may also be interested in

Shopify is the best ecommerce hosting provider for online stores. Web hosting is bundled in with other features businesses need to sell online, including website templates, inventory management dashboards, and payment processing.

Do I need ecommerce hosting?

Yes, every online store needs an ecommerce host. Your provider relays data—like images, text files, and code—to a visitor’s browser when they land on your website. They’d land on a broken website if you didn’t have a host.

What are the three types of ecommerce web hosts?

An ecommerce server is the computer hardware a hosting provider uses to store your website’s data. A shopper’s browser requests information from this server when loading the page.

But, What is eCommerce Hosting?

As the name itself suggests, eCommerce hosting is a hosting that is specifically designed to host eCommerce websites.

It is equipped with every essential feature needed to sell products and services online.

By offering an eCommerce specific hosting plan, the hosting company provides top-notch functionality and systems for your eCommerce website.

Running a website online is complex on its own. And, running an eCommerce website can get more complicated. That is why it is crucial to choose a hosting that is designed for it.

An ideal eCommerce hosting offers

• Super fast loading speed
• Dedicated server to host your site
• Top-notch security of all your site data
• Huge disk space
• Different modes of purchases
• Ability to run all eCommerce features, etc.

Types of ecommerce hosts

There are two options to consider when choosing a new ecommerce host.

SaaS hosted

SaaS hosting is provided by the website builder you use to create your ecommerce store. This is the easier and safest option for founders with limited technical knowledge. In many cases, the platform handles the connection between your host and domain name, no complex coding needed.

It’s also the cheapest option for many small business owners. You’ll get ecommerce web hosting bundled in with other important features like payment processing, inventory management, and point-of-sale (POS) tools, all for one monthly fee.

Self-hosting

If you need more flexibility from your hosting provider, consider self-hosting. Providers have different tiers depending on the size and speed of your ecommerce site:

The downside to self-hosting is that it can get expensive—fast. Tiered pricing incentivizes small businesses to spend more for faster loading speeds, prioritized customer support, and increased bandwidth. That’s on top of the other website costs you’ll need to factor into your ecommerce operating expenses.

Pricing

Now the best part. Or the worst part? One that is definitely important if you’re a representative of small businesses or startups.

Here’s the full pricing table comparison:

One important thing to point out is to not get overly excited with WooCommerce’s seemingly attractive pricing. While, yes, the platform itself is free, and all the components needed to make it operational (including PayPal payments, etc.) are free, you might need a number of paid extensions to get some helpful additional features. This will grow your bill, requiring you to pay more at the checkout.

For example, and I know that every business is different and needs different elements, but I think we can assume that these extensions will prove useful for most:

Of course, in all honesty, all those backend add-ons can be purchased as you go along and exactly when you need them, but it’s still an investment that you have to be ready to take on.

Also, the hosting thing. In the table above, I’m saying that it’s around $100 / year. I got that number from Bluehost. Out of the three tiers available, I wouldn’t recommend going below Plus, which starts from $5.45. Pro plan is $13.95 if you go for a three-year plan. Hence, this adds up to $65.40 for the former and $167.40 for the latter annually. You’ll get an SSL certificate included free of charge as a bonus.

Doing the maths, let’s say that you need just half of the extensions mentioned above, so around $192 of additional investment required to get those. Plus the hosting – $65 – and we have $257 for the first year. Still very – very – attractive pricing, but far from “free.”

(Just for comparison, the top ecommerce plan at Shopify – $29 – adds up to $348 per year, though you also might want to purchase some additional paid Shopify apps on top of that.)

And we’re not done yet.

Another thing to keep in mind when picking the best ecommerce platform for yourself is to check the transaction fees and credit card processing rates.

Usually, you can expect around 2.5-3% + $0.30 per transaction when using a payment processor. However, depending on the payment gateway you use, you might get double-charged with some ecommerce platforms.

BigCommerce and WooCommerce don’t put any fee on top of your transaction as far as I know, so the only fees you pay are those by your payment gateway.

Overall, for me, it comes down to this:

I love WooCommerce for the fact that you can get the bare-bones working setup only for the price of hosting, and I love Shopify for their $9 Lite plan. Both of these will be a great solution if you’re among the small businesses or startups. That’s why they both get 10/10.

Features

The thing to realize right away is that each of these ecommerce solutions offers basically the same set of “crucial ecommerce features” – features that are essential for every online store.

The devil is in the details, though, so when picking the best ecommerce platform for yourself, you should probably focus on things that are more niche in their nature, yet can mean the world to your online business. And the complete list of those can be huge, so I urge you to do your own research and in-depth comparison once you have a general idea of the platform you’d like to try out.

For instance, Shopify has their POS (point of sale) system that allows you to sell your physical products and digital products on the go or in your brick-and-mortar store without any additional ecommerce tools or machinery – like external cash registers, etc. This can reduce your overall costs of running a store hugely.

That being said, when it comes to the best ecommerce platform based on the overall richness of features that each platform has to offer, I would rate it as such:

The best ecommerce hosting compared (in a nutshell)

If you don’t have time to read an in-depth comparison right now, check out this summary of our results (and come back later for the full story!):

If you’re involved in the field of ecommerce, then you know how important picking the right web host can be. It’s a choice that can have a severe impact on the success of your online store.

To get a more complete picture, we set up a simple WooCommerce store with a handful of products using each host. We used the same setup for all four ecommerce hosting solutions – including the store itself and all the other plugins we used – and tested their performance using Pingdom Tools.

9 best ecommerce web hosting providers compared

Shopify hosting has 99.99% uptime, considered the gold standard in the industry. It also uses a content delivery network (CDN) with several servers to make sure global website visitors can access your ecommerce store as quickly as possible, no matter how fast you grow.

Get access to powerful and scalable features as part of Shopify’s ecommerce platform, including:

• Free SSL certificates
• Unlimited bandwidth
• Free domain name
• Unlimited email forwarding
• PCI compliance

If that wasn’t good enough, Shopify hosting lets you focus on what you do best: run an online business. Any hosting updates will be done automatically—no need to deal with downtime, fix bugs, or spend hours on the phone to support.

We use Shopify and we recommend it very much. It has been nothing but a joy to use and is very easy to set up. Downtimes are minimal, and if they occur, the team resolves it within hours always.

G2 rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars

Pricing: From $39/month as part of the ecommerce platform package. Start a free trial today.

IONOS

IONOS, known previously as 1&1, offers a range of hosting packages. It recommends the Web Hosting Expert plan for business owners looking to host an online store, which includes features like:

• 500 GB storage
• One-click installer with ecommerce platforms like Shopify
• 99.99% uptime with two data centers
• Website analytics
• Enhanced CPU resources

IONOS’ most impressive feature is fast loading speeds. It reports faster loading times than other hosting providers, including Bluehost, GoDaddy, and Hostgator.

However, many customers report a steeper-than-usual learning curve with its control panel functionality. Expect to spend some time digging around the back end of its hosting management system should you need to make any changes.

G2 rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Pricing: $8/month for 12 months; $16/month thereafter.

Bluehost

Customers get access to various features in each of its hosting packages, including:

• Unlimited products
• Payment processing
• Free domain
• 30 GB SSD storage

It’s worth noting that certain Bluehost features are reserved for premium packages, including domain name privacy and unmetered bandwidth. Packages can also get expensive after introductory offers expire.

G2 rating: 3.6 out of 5 stars

Pricing: From $9.95 per month.

Siteground

Siteground powers more than 2.8 million domains and boasts a customer satisfaction rate of 98%. Its hosting service is recommended by WordPress and gives ecommerce founders access to:

• Constant security monitoring
• 24/7 customer support
• Free daily backups
• WooCommerce hosting integration

One thing to consider when adding Siteground to your hosting shortlist is that it’s no longer PCI compliant. You’ll need to pay extra for a compliant ecommerce platform, such as Shopify, to process payments through a Siteground-hosted website.

G2 rating: 4.1 out of 5 stars

Pricing: From $4.99/month.

A2 Hosting

• Free SSL certificate
• 99.9% uptime commitment
• Fast loading speeds by default
• 250 GB SSD storage
• Works with PHP-based platforms like Magento, Drupal, and Joomla

One of A2 Hosting’s biggest differentiators is its commitment to preventing climate change. Its green initiative plants trees in its headquarters city of Ann Arbor, Michigan, when customers pay for a new package. Add it to your shortlist if sustainability is one of your brand’s core values.

GoDaddy

Mostly working with sites using WordPress, GoDaddy offers four different packages, depending on the storage, bandwidth, and processing power your ecommerce store needs. Each includes:

• 24/7 network security
• Access to 150 free apps
• Global data centers for fast loading times
• Free one-click WordPress installation

It’s worth noting that growing ecommerce businesses will need to change GoDaddy hosting plans as they scale. To get faster processing power and speed, alongside 100 GB of storage and free SSL certificates, you’d need to upgrade to an Ultimate or Maximum plan.

G2 rating: 3.9 out of 5 stars

Pricing: From $9.99/month for the economy package.

HostGator

HostGator is another option to consider when searching for an ecommerce hosting solution. More than two million websites use its hosting packages, though you’ll need a private VPS plan to access features like:

• 99.9% uptime guarantee
• 24/7 365 support via phone or live chat
• Weekly off-site automatic backups
• Unlimited email accounts

Much like any other self-hosting packages, expect your monthly fee to change as your ecommerce business grows. Also be aware that introductory deals are often much lower than full price. Prepare for costly renewal fees once your deal term expires.

Pricing: From $19.95 per month for private VPS hosting.

DreamHost

DreamHost is a popular web hosting service that guarantees 100% uptime. It’s one of the services recommended for a WordPress website.

DreamHost’s ecommerce plans include the WooCommerce plug-in. You’ll also get unlimited email, a minimum 30 GB of SSD storage, one-click staging, and free WordPress migrations.

Some features include:

• 100% uptime guarantee
• Strong security features
• Domain-management tools
• Unlimited data transfers per month
• 24/7 expert support

G2 rating: 3.7 out of 5 stars

InMotion Hosting

InMotion Hosting is a good option for any sized business looking to host an ecommerce store. It offers a variety of website hosting plans with a simple setup process and reliable customer support. One drawback is that you have storage limits on base plans.

• Free SSL certificate
• Optimized for PrestaShop, Magento, OpenCart, and WooCommerce
• 24/7 support
• Advance caching

G2 rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars

Pricing: Plans start at $2.49 per month.

When you probably shouldn’t get an eCommerce hosting?

• If your business is relatively new
• If your website has less number of products
• Your site traffic per month is limited
• The data on your website is manageable

Under these cases, you will be able to run your eCommerce website smoothly even with a normal website hosting.

As your site grows, you can shift to a best eCommerce hosting provider and scale your online possibilities.

As important it is to choose eCommerce hosting, it is equally important to choose the right eCommerce hosting provider. Because a hosting provider goes a long way and it literally forms the basis of the eCommerce website.

So, you need to consider several factors that you want for your website before making the decision. This includes how much you prioritize your website speed, reliability, security, etc.

So, to help you make a sound decision, we have analysed the various eCommerce hosting providers and curated the list of the 5 Best web hosting for eCommerce websites.

Before getting into each of the hosting providers in detail, let’s first understand what are the must-have features you need to look for in an eCommerce hosting provider. These features will help you make a better decision when we get into the details of each hosting provider.

How to choose an ecommerce hosting provider

Google the phrase “ecommerce hosting provider” and you’ll see millions of results. How do you know which company should be trusted with the most important factor in running an ecommerce business: your website?

Here are five important things a beginner should consider when choosing a new hosting provider.

It makes sense to pay for a top-quality ecommerce host. A reliable one minimizes the chance of your website becoming unavailable for customers to access. But bear in mind that some options can be much cheaper than others in the long term, especially if you plan to scale.

Check for any limitations or hidden fees on the ecommerce hosting plans you’re comparing. With some self-hosted providers, some features are charged extra—such as analytics access, file storage, bandwidth overages, and branded email accounts.

Planning to keep costs down? Hosting from your ecommerce platform bundles those costs into one monthly fee. Shopify hosting, for example, starts at just $39 per month. That includes a domain name, unlimited bandwidth, inventory management, and PCI compliance in one dashboard. Paying for each of those ecommerce features separately would be much more expensive.

Speed and bandwidth

The experience a customer has with your website makes or breaks their decision to purchase something.

Offer that to visitors by prioritizing loading times on your online store. For each hosting provider on your shortlist, check the bandwidth—the maximum data a host can transfer between your website and a visitor within a given time period.

If you exceed your host’s bandwidth limit, your site will become unavailable for potential customers to access. The host can’t process data fast enough to cope with high demand. In this case, you’ll likely need to upgrade your plan—hence why limited bandwidth hosting providers can get more expensive as your ecommerce business scales.

Narrow your shortlist down to providers with unlimited bandwidth. When your ecommerce business begins to grow, unlimited bandwidth gives you enough processing power to serve thousands of website visitors at once.

Uptime

You lose money every second your ecommerce store is offline. Prevent that from happening by selecting a hosting provider with a history of minimal downtime.

Tools like Uptime and Pindgom give unbiased reports for top hosting providers, including the issues each has and how long it takes for the host to respond to them. Ideally, uptime should be as close to 100% as possible.

Confirm with each provider whether your store is backed up if the worst does happen. Should something go wrong, you’ll have a file to reupload and get your store back online. The frequency of these depends on how often you update your site. Small businesses might only need weekly backups; larger stores with thousands of SKUs will need daily backups.

In addition, check the protection each hosting provider gives its data centers. Top providers have processes in place to prevent downtime—like on-site security, multiple sources of energy, and cooling systems to prevent the servers from overheating.

Privacy and security

Unfortunately, every website owner runs the risk of falling victim to an attack. Criminals can inject malicious code into your data and eavesdrop on information passed through. Distributed denial of service (DDoS) is also common. It happens when scammers overload your host and make your site unavailable.

Greatly minimize the risk of attacks tanking your site by choosing a host with antivirus features like:

• DDoS protection
• Firewalls

Similarly, anybody can look up the information of a domain using a WHOIS lookup—including when the site was registered, when the domain expires, and details of who owns it. If you’d rather keep this information to yourself, choose a provider that offers WHOIS protection.

Free SSL certificates are another thing to look out for when evaluating different hosts. An ecommerce store will be marked “Not secure” without an SSL certificate, which encrypts the data being transmitted through a website.

Partake, hosted on Shopify, has an SSL certificate to show visitors that information passed through its ecommerce store is secure.

Speaking of encrypting data, customers pass sensitive information through a website when making online purchases. Protect their name, mailing address, and credit card information by confirming each hosting provider is PCI compliant.

Customer support

Hosting can be complex, especially as the volume of your website traffic increases. Make sure the ecommerce host you choose is easy to contact if you have questions.

“Many hosts offer 24/7 customer support, but the level of support can vary greatly,” says Dave Smyth, co-founder of Scruples. “Consider what options there are for contacting a support team. Phone or live chat can be great in an emergency, but sometimes you just need to send a quick ticket about a non-urgent task without waiting in a queue.”

That’s another important distinction between SaaS and self-hosted platforms. The latter, for which pricing is often tiered, incentivizes you to pay more for priority support.

The best ecommerce hosting for small business compared (in full)

Here’s what we discovered about each host, in no particular order:

SiteGround (www. siteground. com)

Instead of offering a one-size-fits-all ecommerce plan, SiteGround offers tailored hosting for several major ecommerce platforms. These include WooCommerce (as seen above), PrestaShop, and Magento.

Ecommerce specific features

• Web Application Firewall (WAF)
• Free Let’s Encrypt certificates
• Custom hosting plans for several major ecommerce platforms
• 24/7 support
• Fully PCI compliant (albeit only for their more expensive tier of plans)
• Daily backup service

Support and security

During our tests, we found that SiteGround’s support team was highly knowledgeable and quick to answer any questions we had via live chat. Furthermore, they offer a nice set of security features that go well beyond what you’d expect based on their low prices.

Final thoughts on SiteGround

Much like our first pick, SiteGround offers a great ecommerce hosting experience for small business at very reasonable prices. Their support team is fantastic, and their security features are a boon for both growing ecommerce enterprises and those just starting off. That said, their ecommerce performance is pretty good, but they offer little in terms of scalability (due to a limited selection of plans).

InMotion Hosting (www. inmotionhosting. com)

InMotion Hosting is renowned for its low prices and comprehensive feature set, and its ecommerce hosting solutions are no exception.

• Various SSL options
• Supports multiple ecommerce platforms including PrestaShop, OpenCart, Magento, and WooCommerce
• PCI compliant
• Around-the-clock support
• Automatic backups

InMotion Hosting’s ecommerce Hosting plans offer a stable hosting solution on a budget. You get access to a decent set of security features and regular support options, although the host doesn’t excel in either area. However, for this price point you’ll be hard pressed to find a better alternative.

Final thoughts on InMotion Hosting

InMotion Hosting’s ecommerce Hosting plans are a decent pick for small stores and those new to the field of ecommerce. You get a good set of scalability options and blazing performance at a low price. At the end of the day, however, you’ll probably want to upgrade to their more expensive VPS plans once your store starts growing.

A2 Hosting (www. a2hosting. com)

Rounding off our list, we have A2 Hosting. This web host offers ecommerce hosting for small business that support most popular platforms, such as PrestaShop, OpenCart, Magento, and WooCommerce.

• Dual firewall system
• One-click setups for most major ecommerce platforms
• Automatic backups and server rewind functionality available for some of their plans (beyond the lowest tiers)
• Dedicated IP addresses available for a small fee (approximately $2 per month)
• Free SSL certificates

When it comes to support response times, A2 Hosting outshone both our other picks. In most cases, we were able to get in touch with a support specialist in under a minute.

Security-wise, they offer a decent set of features for their price range. Their firewalls are par for the course, but their server rewind feature does come in handy since it functions like an advanced backup. Best of all, this feature is accessible right from your cPanel, which means you can use it to regain control over your site in the event you can’t access it directly.

Final thoughts on A2 Hosting

A2 Hosting offers excellent performance (especially within the US) and reliable support at low prices. It’s a great all-around pick, with a decent set of security features. They don’t have a lot of variation in terms of plans, but their offerings are sturdy enough for small to medium-sized online stores.

Kinsta (www. kinsta. com)

Kinsta is a high-end WordPress hosting solution with a variety of plans for businesses of all shapes and sizes. For the purposes of this article, we’re going to take a look at Kinsta’s specialized WooCommerce hosting. Note that this hosting is only compatible with WooCommerce, so if you want to use a different ecommerce plugin or system, you’ll want to look at one of the other options on this list.

• Support for WooCommerce (no other ecommerce systems)
• Server-level caching with specialized rules to ensure that WooCommerce functions properly
• Payment gateway performance monitoring
• Performance monitoring tools for WooCommerce and related add-ons
• Automated SSL certification
• Automated daily backups

Kinsta offers high-quality customer support with a 4.5 star rating on G2.com. I reached out a couple of times through the live chat to test this out and found that I was always connected to a knowledgeable support worker within a couple of minutes. Kinsta also has several top-notch security measures in place including automated backups and SSL certification, DDoS server protection, and more.

Final thoughts on Kinsta

With plans starting at $29.17, Kinsta is the most expensive option on this list of the best ecommerce hosting solutions, but the cost is earned through a variety of specialized WordPress and WooCommerce tools. If you want to invest in the very best web hosting available, Kinsta is a great choice.

What about all the other ecommerce platforms that are out there?

Okay, so the first thing everyone realizes when they start looking for the best ecommerce company for their next project is the overall abundance of software in this market. In case you’re not up-to-date with the topic, just to show you how crazy it is, here are all the platforms that I considered for the title of best ecommerce platform:

Still, when building a comparison like this one, we have to narrow things down so that they’re easily digestible and focus on the true leaders of the industry. This is what where doing here.

BONUS VIDEO: best eCommerce website design trends

* This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links and then purchase the product, we’ll receive a small commission. No worries though, you’ll still pay the standard amount so there’s no additional cost on your part.

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Your choice of ecommerce host is important

The ecommerce host you choose for your online store is a big decision. Your provider is responsible for making your site accessible to potential customers wherever and whenever they want to shop.

Take some time to investigate the ecommerce hosting options we’ve recommended here—but don’t rush into it. Many providers offer 30-day money-back guarantees and free trials to test each package.

Next, let’s talk about the best ecommerce platform when it comes to design customization.

(Not only ready-made web designs, but also the overall abilities of the platforms when it comes to customizations and adjustments of what the final store looks like.)

Let’s take this one by one:

Designs in Shopify

The designs available in Shopify are very impressive, modern-looking, and should be able to cover pretty much any niche or type of business.

The only downside is that there is just a handful of free Shopify themes available at the moment. Shopify seems to be cutting down on the number of free themes. I’m pretty sure there were more available just a couple of years ago. When it comes to the paid Shopify themes, the price tags on those hover around $160-$180 a piece.

Just a note; when you’re looking for a design, you don’t need to pay as much attention to the specific type of products showcased in the design demo – those are just example and they don’t define the purpose of the theme.

After you select a theme, they are easily customizable, including things like the header, footer settings, typography, colors, presets, and more. Of course, you can also set backgrounds and images right how you need them.

In the end, Shopify is geared at giving you a partially pre-filled design that you only need to adjust to fit your exact needs most of the time. It’s not a blank canvas where you’re just thrown into and don’t know what’s next.

Designs in WooCommerce

As you probably already know, there’s no such thing as web design in WooCommerce per se. Under the hood, WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin, and as such, it puts its content and information – your product listings – through your current WordPress theme.

This has both its advantages and disadvantages.

On the one hand, you get to keep using your current theme and the whole thing should be able to work just fine. So less hassle on your part if you already have a working WordPress website.

But on the other hand, you might also stumble upon some difficulties with certain areas of the store not being displayed like you want them to. In extreme scenarios, you might be even forced to change the site’s theme altogether to make everything fit (but this doesn’t happen often).

That being said, getting things to look exactly like you need them might require some work, and you will rarely get the perfect result without doing some manual tweaks in the theme’s CSS or via some other means or plugins.

Here’s what my test store looks like on the default WordPress theme at the moment:

Usable, but not perfect.

Overall, when building a completely new online store with WooCommerce, it’s advisable to opt for a specific WooCommerce-optimized theme rather than going with a general thing.

Here’s what the same store of mine looks like on the official WooCommerce theme – Storefront:

And most importantly, many of them are completely free themes, so this will minimize your initial setup costs, but more on that later on.

In the end, where Shopify’s theme selection was great for its out-the-box quality, WooCommerce’s gives you much more in terms of the customizations possible, but it also requires more work.

Designs in Magento

Although I don’t have much experience with the platform – despite its popularity in my country – from what I see, Magento is not very strong in the design department.

First off, the company behind Magento doesn’t offer any themes of their own, so you just get the main software. This means that you have to go to third parties to get anything.

However, all those themes are simply not that stunning (at least in my opinion), maybe apart from a couple of themes on ThemeForest, and you get a lot more variety and modern-looking designs from the other ecommerce solutions on this list.

The thing with Magento’s lifespan overall as it relates to design is that being one of the top enterprise ecommerce platforms, in most cases, it’s agencies that built Magento sites for clients. They also handled the design side of the equation in the process. Therefore, Magento itself wasn’t ever required to deliver good designs in the box.

Designs in BigCommerce

BigCommerce gives you access to both free and paid themes, although the free department is even smaller than Shopify’s – just seven themes at the time of writing. If you turn your attention to paid themes, those can get quite expensive – often $145-$250.

Once you pick your theme, the customization is very good. There’s a lot of settings to play with. You get general color settings, headers, footers, buttons, section titles, sliders, and more. Overall, a nice and powerful interface.

Designs in Wix eCommerce

Wix advertises 800+ pre-made templates that you can choose from, but only around ~100 are really optimized for ecommerce. Still, you can always take a non-ecommerce theme and add store functionality.

And even with the ecommerce-dedicated themes, you get plenty of choice. For example, you’ll find different niche themes for t-shirts, makeup, technology, etc.

The verdict

Overall, BigCommerce seems to be offering a bit more design customization possibilities than Shopify. There are just more elements that are customizable or that can be fine-tuned – to get your store to look and feel how you want it. Wix eCommerce also does well here with its Dev mode.

At the end of the day, though, I still consider Shopify’s interface a bit more friendly, and I get the impression that Shopify’s designs need slightly less work before you get them looking 100% right.

But then, there’s also the big elephant in the room, WooCommerce, and its compatibility with thousands of WordPress themes. For this alone, I need to put WooCommerce first here. So my final verdict re design is:

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Yes. Managed WordPress hosting will be an ideal fit to host eCommerce websites considering the WordPress-optimized servers. With WordPress providing the right platform for businesses via WooCommerce, managed WordPress hosting can just be the right choice for an online store.

Can I host my eCommerce website on a shared server?

An ideal website hosting for an eCommerce startup would provide superfast websites at an affordable cost. So, taking both of the factors into account, WebSpaceKit provides the right balance and would be ideal for an eCommerce startup to launch an online store.

Which is the most affordable WooCommerce hosting provider for businesses?

WebSpaceKit, GoDaddy and DreamHost are some of the affordable eCommerce hosting options available in the market. However, one needs to find the right balance between affordable pricing and website speed.That way, WebSpaceKit finds the right balance between both factors and can be the right hosting provider for eCommerce websites.

So, is eCommerce hosting the best for your business?

Here’s our two cents on this question.

• And to save all these on your website, you will need more space in your database.
• An eCommerce hosting takes all these into consideration and offers the best hosting plan for your business.
• So, if your website has a consistent audience with an increase in purchases,
• Then you’ll be doing your business a HUGE favor by hosting it on an eCommerce hosting.
• It not only improves your website’s performance but also saves you a lot of time and money by providing the necessary features to run an eCommerce store.
• And, it also gives you the freedom to manage your store under one roof and lets you focus on your business’s needs.

The key features of ecommerce hosting for small business

When choosing the best web hosting for your ecommerce site, you need to be a bit pickier than usual. We’re not talking strictly about performance either – some hosts simply offer more features specific to ecommerce needs.

For instance, it’s estimated that Amazon loses $2 million for every minute of downtime!

Granted, the situation is probably not as brutal for you, but still any dollar lost due to website problems is something you shouldn’t have to deal with.

As far as we’re concerned, these are the key features you should keep an eye out for when looking for the right host:

• Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates. SSL certificates enable you to encrypt your customer’s data for added protection, and they’re quickly becoming the standard even beyond ecommerce. Ideally, you should look for a host that facilitates the setup process for you. And if the host works with Let’s Encrypt – which is free – then even better.
• Backup functionality. There are plenty of ways to set up scheduled backups for any platform, but it’s always nice when a web host takes care of that aspect for you. A comprehensive hosting plan will include regular backups and provide you with simple restore options.
• Around-the-clock support. Downtime is the stuff of nightmares for any online store. Not only do you lose out on potential sales each time your store is unavailable, your customers may get the impression your operation isn’t professional. That’s why a good ecommerce host will take all necessary measures to minimize downtime.

Throughout this article, we’ll let you know what web hosts offer each of these features, which should help you make an informed decision. If you don’t see a particular feature listed under the host’s ecommerce specific features section, then that host doesn’t offer it. We’ll also let you know when a key feature is only available on certain plans.

That said, we recommend you don’t make your choice based solely on a list of features. After all, each web host has unique strengths that you’ll want to take into consideration when choosing the best option among ecommerce hosting for small business.

What is ecommerce web hosting?

Any website hosting plan with specialized tools for ecommerce is an ecommerce web hosting plan. This may include additional security features, specialized tools and backups for WooCommerce, and other tools designed to help you run an online store.

What are the cheapest ecommerce hosting options?

InMotion is the cheapest high-quality ecommerce hosting option. The base plans offered by SiteGround and A2 Hosting are also quite affordable.

Does Shopify do hosting?

What is an ecommerce host?

An ecommerce host is a company that lends space on its server to power your online store.

A hosting company stores the text, images, and code used to make your website visible to online shoppers. It works with a browser to relay that information to anyone landing on your ecommerce website.

So, which is the best web hosting for eCommerce website?

What we have mentioned in this article is the Top 5 web hosting for eCommerce websites. While there are hundreds of different hosting providers, these five stand out to be the right fit for eCommerce websites due to the performance and features they offer.

At the end of the day, after considering all the necessary features in the hosting providers, it comes down to a couple of things like website speed, security and pricing.

Website speed is the most crucial aspect of an online store as it decides whether a casual visitor turns into a potential customer. Every second delay in the website may result in a customer turning away without making the purchase.

That is why it is advisable to choose a hosting provider like WebSpaceKit that loads the entire website in just over 1 second.

In fact, we tested one of the reviewers’ websites and there were no surprises! The performance was top-notch with a GTmetrix grade A.

Another important aspect most business owners and startups consider is the pricing, because obviously, no one wishes to spend all the capital on launching a website. But at the same time, one should also check the website speed and make sure they aren’t sacrificing speed for pricing.

That is why it is advisable to choose WebSpaceKit as the eCommerce hosting provider as it finds the right balance between website speed and pricing, without having to sacrifice one.

How to find the Best Web Hosting for your eCommerce website?

Though you now have a brief idea about each hosting provider, you still need to choose the right web hosting for your eCommerce website according to your needs.

For instance, if you believe your business will grow exponentially with more traffic over time, then you need to consider an eCommerce hosting that provides a scalable platform to accommodate your needs.

Whereas, if most of your customers are from a particular region, say Asian countries like India, then you need to choose an eCommerce host that has its servers located in India for fast loading time.

Likewise, you need to take into account your specific needs along with the essential factors like performance, security, and pricing and choose the best web hosting for eCommerce websites.