What Does E-commerce Hosting Mean?
E-commerce hosting is a business that furnishes merchants with solutions for selling their merchandise online. The merchant is typically billed monthly for using space on the hosting company’s server. Software is also leased for online order processing. E-commerce hosting businesses usually manage all the technical facets of commercial website development and maintenance for their clients. E-commerce hosting can also include electronic data interchange (EDI).
An e-commerce host may also be referred to as a web hosting provider.
Techopedia Explains E-commerce Hosting
E-commerce hosting covers a wide array of solutions and applications that assist businesses with selling their products on the World Wide Web. These services most typically include Web page design, electronic storefronts and online catalogs, electronic shopping carts, the provision of financial transactions, customer order processing, and inventory management tools. E-commerce hosting may also involve EDI, which includes emails, faxes and business documents. EDI documents are made up of data element strings that represent a product’s price, model number and other important information.
E-commerce hosting usually offers set-up services for Internet merchant accounts, which can process major credit card transactions. Some e-commerce hosts may even register their clients’ domain names. Business-to-business e-commerce (transactions between businesses) services and demographic data gathering may also be offered by host providers.