Hosting

Reliable hosting is the foundation of every online business. When it comes to hosting stores, it becomes even more crucial.

Compared to traditional websites, e-commerce systems are somewhat more complex due to all the functionalities they include. This means they require more powerful hosting for their operation.

Many online retailers would like to save a few euros, which is why they often opt for regular shared hosting. Shared hosting means having multiple online stores on the same server, sharing the server's resources. As long as it's a small online store with a low number of products and traffic, this usually doesn't cause problems. However, as the number of products or visitors increases, this hosting method becomes insufficient. The performance of the server is not only affected by the size of your store and its traffic but also by the way other sites on the same server load it. In practice, this means that another site on the same server may have higher traffic and visits, affecting your store. Almost every store owner hosting on shared hosting has faced this issue.

For reliable store operation, you need a more powerful server or customized hosting that can handle more traffic and host larger online stores. Some hosting providers now offer tailored hosting for stores, having their servers set up specifically for the requirements of a specific store. In this case, it usually involves virtual private servers (VPS) or dedicated servers.

Virtual Private Server or VPS is designed for more demanding users who need greater performance for running their online stores. With VPS hosting, the physical server is divided into multiple virtual servers, with each user of a virtual server having allocated a certain amount of memory, processor, and hard disk available only to them. This way, you avoid problems that neighboring sites on shared hosting might cause.

Dedicated Server is the last step of web hosting, where an online store has an entire server at its disposal. A dedicated server offers complete customization of the system according to your needs and allows meeting specific requirements.

Cloud hosting means the store runs on several connected servers (or virtual resources) of the provider, which can be quickly scaled up or down depending on traffic. Unlike classic shared hosting, capacity is not tied to a single physical server, which makes it suitable for stores with fluctuating traffic (promotions, Black Friday). You usually pay according to usage.

Cloud stores are also worth mentioning, and their advantage lies in the fact that online merchants don't have to worry about hosting since it is included in the cloud store service. This way, all tenants of a cloud store have one less worry since they don't have to deal with hosting. The store service provider takes care of hosting the system. Keep in mind that you are limited to the platform's options and tied to the provider: moving away can be difficult.

In between there is also managed hosting for online stores: besides the server, the provider takes care of system updates, security, backups, speed and monitoring. For merchants without a technical team this is often the best choice between shared hosting and your own server.

It is crucial to be aware that proper hosting is very important. Every moment your site is down or very slow, you lose customers and, consequently, revenue. Many are not aware that with a few additional euros per month, they can ensure more reliable hosting, reducing the number of lost customers and revenue decline.

Key functionalities important for e-commerce hosting:

Available space - the space must be sufficient for hosting all the code of the store, especially content (product images, etc.). Usually, the size of the required space on the server is proportional to the number of products. The more products you have, the more space they occupy with images, texts, attachments, and other content.

Adequate processor and cache availability - a very important detail that most hosting providers hide, although it affects the speed of executing e-commerce processes, and consequently, its responsiveness and execution speed. Usually, this represents the largest share of hosting costs, so many online stores with poor configurations prefer to omit it.

Data transfer without a hidden limit - every request on the server (e.g., a visitor accessing the online store) consumes a certain amount of data transfer. This can vary significantly depending on the size of the transferred content and the number of visitors. With increased traffic (for example after a successful advertising campaign), data transfer grows quickly. Check the fair-use policy and what happens when you exceed it: slower performance or unavailability.

Secure connection (HTTPS/TLS) - a certificate is free today (e.g. Let's Encrypt) and taken for granted; expensive extended validation (EV) no longer has a visible effect in browsers. Check automatic certificate renewal (certificate lifetimes are getting shorter, so automatic renewal is essential) and redirection of all addresses to HTTPS.

Daily backups - without backups of the store, various problems can occur, especially errors on the site, a hacker attack, or something similar that can cause the store to not work or important data loss. In such cases, data backup can save the business. Imagine accidentally deleting a few thousand products in your online store. The likelihood of this happening may be small in your opinion, but in my career, it has happened several times. If we hadn't made data backups, we would probably need a few months to prepare new content, during which time the online store would exist without content and without sales items. A backup is worth nothing until you have tested it: try a restore on a test environment at least twice a year. Also keep backups at another location (the 3-2-1 rule: three copies, two media, one off-site).

Server access - if you often make changes to the store, the technical team needs access to files, the database, logs and settings (a control panel such as cPanel or Plesk, or access via secure shell, SSH). Without it, every more demanding intervention would wait for the hosting provider. With managed hosting the provider carries out these tasks; check which ones are included.

Email and spam protection - the provider should offer protection for incoming mail (antivirus scanning, filters) and correct settings for outgoing mail (SPF, DKIM, DMARC). The store's outgoing mail (order confirmations) must not end up in the spam folder.

Responsive technical support with a clearly defined response time in the contract (SLA). Around-the-clock availability often applies only to critical outages; ask what is included, who is responsible and through which channel. Also check the guaranteed server availability (e.g. 99.9%).

Additional points when choosing hosting

• Data location: servers in the EU/EEA because of GDPR and simpler contracts.
• Protection: a web application firewall (WAF), protection against DDoS attacks, two-step verification for all access to the administration.
• CDN for faster display to users in different countries.
• Staging environment: test changes before publishing.
• Monitoring with an alert in case of an outage.
• Caching and a modern PHP version (see Online Store Upkeep and Online Store Speed Optimization).
• Migration: check how easily you can move the store elsewhere.

The EU cybersecurity directive (NIS2, Directive (EU) 2022/2555) covers, among others, providers of online marketplaces; an ordinary store selling its own products is not a marketplace. How it applies depends on your country's transposition and on size thresholds, so check with an expert. More: Online store legislation in the EU.

Reliable hosting is never an expense but a good investment.

AuthorAnže Voh

My name is Anže, I am a certified Magento solution expert and the maker of several award-winning online stores. I am the architect of all Degriz projects.

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