What are some eCommerce Domain Hosting Options?

The company that registers your domain name is called a registrar. This means that they are authorized to buy and sell domains on the internet to customers for personal or business use. Registrars charge a fee for “keeping the domain” that can be moderated by the length of your renewal or other options tied with hosting packages. Registering a domain is only the first part of a long process to building your eCommerce website. Hosting considerations should include the amount of concurrent users visiting your site, the time zones serviced, level of customer support from your provider and server downtime contingency plans.

Here are some of the most common eCommerce Hosting providers in Toronto and the intended purpose


goDaddy

Considered one of the most cost-effective, budget-friendly options. While there are many benefits for starting on a cheap hosting platform, the SEO risks for shared hosting are not worth the hassle. After a website has had significant investment for growth, the GoDaddy web hosting packages no longer serve a budgetary benefit when considering the technical SEO liabilities. While GoDaddy certainly offers an Online Store suite to accommodate basic SEO considerations, its ultimate function is to hold customers back until they find a better growth platform.

Shopify

An easy to use, a well-integrated platform that considers small and medium-sized businesses in their pricing model. Featuring plans ranging from $29-$299 a month with incentives to use Shopify Payment platforms, their focus on creating a user-friendly experience to manage eCommerce has been successful. Unfortunately, the platform is overly reliant on third-party apps to apply basic functionalities for SEO or other analytic integrations. Factor in these limitations with the high transaction fees on top of payment gateway costs and you have a solution that is far more expensive than it appears. For most enterprise eCommerce businesses, Shopify is not going to be the answer.

HostPapa

HostPapa is a local Burlington staple aiming for cheap and affordable hosting plans with a low opening price. Unfortunately, the performance of this hosting option does not meet technical SEO specifications when paired against similar-sized companies. Their add-on packages can quickly drive up the price and still require WordPress or some other CMS to provide a true eCommerce solution. 

BigCommerce

One of the older eCommerce solutions, BigCommerce provides a fully hosted solution so you won’t have to worry about additional maintenance costs. It lacks some native POS features that Magento or Drupal have, and themes are increasingly pricey to support. It can accept multiple payment methods without transaction fees on premium plans and offers some pretty robust business management features. The pricing varies from $29-$300+ per month but offers great eBay & Amazon integration if you are planning on focusing on those channels. Overall, BigCommerce is good for a certain type of business that wants hands-on management but is not ready for enterprise-level features.