Round Tale

Ann Arbor, Michigan – (The Hosting News) – September 1, 2009 – Web hosting service provider and Magento hosting solutions company, NEXCESS.NET LLC, will be expanding its Magento Secure Isolated Platform (SIP) e-commerce web hosting plans.

The original SIP plans, launched in May 2009, are a tightly integrated combination of the popular Magento e-commerce software, combined with optimized high-end hardware and software to guarantee speed, reliability and security.

Chris Wells, CEO of Nexcess noted, ”The SIP plans have really taken off. They’re popular with both small and large clients, including Fortune 500 companies which we’ve signed deals with in the last few weeks. Even the official Magento demo stores have been moved to SIPs.”

The new reseller plan will allow interested customers to resell Magento SIP plans. Mr. Wells added, ”We’ve been offering shared hosting reseller plans for years now, and these are essentially the same blueprint, except with the Magento SIP architecture.”

Each SIP reseller plan provides the reseller with five separate SIPs (approximately the same as a SIP100) at a discounted price. The reseller can then offer these SIP plans to their own clients.

Mr. Wells continued, ”Regular reseller plans are often a popular way for individuals or small companies to offer their own web hosting services to their clients. Perhaps they’re a web design business that wants to be able to offer their clients web hosting as well. We expect that SIPs will appeal to a very similar kind of customer, someone who wants to be able to offer their clients a professionally hosted, extremely secure and stable e-commerce platform.”

Final details of the new SIP reseller plan are available on the website. Nexcess plans to begin offering a standardized SIP plan based around the Magento Enterprise platform within the next month. Full details of all the Magento SIP plans are available on the NEXCESS.NET site.

NEXCESS.NET is an Ann Arbor, Mich. based company specializing in web hosting solutions, offering a range of services from shared hosting to multi-server configurations. NEXCESS.NET provides custom hosting solutions for traffic heavy and high profile websites of all genres. NEXCESS.NET owns and operates its own private data center in Dearborn, Mich. and currently services thousands of clients worldwide.

To learn more, please visit: http://nexcess.net.

Ann Arbor, Michigan – (The Hosting News) – September 1, 2009 – Web hosting service provider and Magento hosting solutions company, NEXCESS.NET LLC, will be expanding its Magento Secure Isolated Platform (SIP) e-commerce web hosting plans.

The original SIP plans, launched in May 2009, are a tightly integrated combination of the popular Magento e-commerce software, combined with optimized high-end hardware and software to guarantee speed, reliability and security.

Chris Wells, CEO of Nexcess noted, ”The SIP plans have really taken off. They’re popular with both small and large clients, including Fortune 500 companies which we’ve signed deals with in the last few weeks. Even the official Magento demo stores have been moved to SIPs.”

The new reseller plan will allow interested customers to resell Magento SIP plans. Mr. Wells added, ”We’ve been offering shared hosting reseller plans for years now, and these are essentially the same blueprint, except with the Magento SIP architecture.”

Each SIP reseller plan provides the reseller with five separate SIPs (approximately the same as a SIP100) at a discounted price. The reseller can then offer these SIP plans to their own clients.

Mr. Wells continued, ”Regular reseller plans are often a popular way for individuals or small companies to offer their own web hosting services to their clients. Perhaps they’re a web design business that wants to be able to offer their clients web hosting as well. We expect that SIPs will appeal to a very similar kind of customer, someone who wants to be able to offer their clients a professionally hosted, extremely secure and stable e-commerce platform.”

Final details of the new SIP reseller plan are available on the website. Nexcess plans to begin offering a standardized SIP plan based around the Magento Enterprise platform within the next month. Full details of all the Magento SIP plans are available on the NEXCESS.NET site.

NEXCESS.NET is an Ann Arbor, Mich. based company specializing in web hosting solutions, offering a range of services from shared hosting to multi-server configurations. NEXCESS.NET provides custom hosting solutions for traffic heavy and high profile websites of all genres. NEXCESS.NET owns and operates its own private data center in Dearborn, Mich. and currently services thousands of clients worldwide.

To learn more, please visit: http://nexcess.net.

Numerous elements go into achieving success with an e-commerce site.  This is one area in which all your vital components need to be working in harmony to create consumer interest, trust and happy customers.  Succeeding with e-commerce calls for all your business processes to be optimized and streamlined, ensuring that everything flows smoothly when consumers visit, navigate and make purchases from your site.  In order to make this happen, many hazards must be avoided to keep you from succumbing to an e-commerce disaster.  ‘

What Leads to a Disaster?

There are a number of instances and obstacles that can lead you straight into a disaster.  For example, you could sign up with an unreliable web hosting provider, select the wrong e-commerce solution, or choose a payment processing method that hinders or completely derails your online transactions.  This is the type of website that runs slow or offers horrible navigation, making its usability inconvenient and very undesirable.  It is an environment where consumers are not sure about making purchases or feel as if their most essential needs are not being satisfied.  While abandoned order pages and shopping carts are tell-tale signs of a disaster, turbulence may commence from the very moment a potential customer lands on your website.

If you want to avoid a disastrous situation with your e-commerce site, you need to make yourself aware of the following inadequacies:

Bad Web Hosting

It is important to know that an e-commerce site is only as efficient as the underlying platform.  When choosing a bad or inadequate hosting solution, you stand the chance of suffering from limited bandwidth, slow loading pages and worst of all, excessive downtime.

All of these instances can result in a loss of customers and ultimately, loss of sales.  An ideal e-commerce platform is one that leverages reliable, high-performance server hardware, redundant high-speed internet connections and the best security practices.

Ineffective Content

Having a website that clearly communicates to your audience is one of the essential keys to succeeding with an e-commerce venture.  You must be able to relay the unique value of your offerings beyond price in a manner that makes visitors want to stick around and make a purchase.  While you don’t want to come on too strong, using cleverly aggressive, action-orientated content can serve as the powerful persuasion you need to convert your visitors into long-term customers.  Play around with a few approaches to find out which processes work best for your business.

Poor Navigation and Usability

Almost every website owner is under the assumption that their sales flow and navigation is intuitive, transparent and user-friendly.  We are here to tell that this is not always the case.  In fact, even the most well designed websites need a little fine-tuning every now and then.  Does your site provide too much information or is it lacking in the content department?  Are there any elements that will distract your visitors from what they need to be focused on?  The answers to these questions and several more can tell you a lot about the navigation and usability aspects of your website.  If outstanding flaws are identified, diagnosis these issues and then optimize your site accordingly.

With the current state of the economy and the uncertainty in job security, more people are considering trading in their 9-to-5 in favor of their own online business.  The transition is quite understandable when considering that many people have been leveraging the internet to make money for well over a decade now.  The potential is endless but even in the internet world, nothing is ever guaranteed.  If you have been thinking about making your way with a web-based business, these four tips should go a long way in helping you tackle the online retail market.

1.) Don’t Rush

Many entrepreneurs and small businesses are eager to dive into the online realm head first.  They are ready and willing to invest into the concept that quickly became a prosperous business idea.  However, this is temptation you should resist for two major reasons.  For one, you probably haven’t even considered all the costs you might encounter.  For example, you must think about your web hosting and e-commerce platform, marketing costs, and investment in the actual products or services you intend to sale.  Secondly, you have little to no experience as an online retailer and no real way of knowing what to expect from this very unpredictable market.  The truth of that matter is that you are going to make a few mistakes.  The best way to minimize them is to take your time and ease into the market.  Don’t invest everything you’ve got into the business.  Begin with the minimum investment and as you start to profit, put that money back into the business to ensure its longevity.

2.) Research and Testing

As your business evolves, you will come to grasp just which items sell the best and where your profits are actually coming from.  This is all fine and dandy, but only when you have established your catalog.  One of the best ways to determine your product niche is through research and testing.  You can start out rather broad with large categories and once you learn how to research the market, you scale your catalog down to the few products likely to generate the most income for your business.

3.) Start Small

There are several web-based platforms that can serve as perfect outlets for your online business endeavors.  You can start out with a free blog site, a low-cost web hosting solution, or something even more out-of-the-box like eBay.  Believe it or not, eBay is an excellent tool for the beginner looking to learn more about the online retail market.   This platform is cost effective, quick and easy to use.  Having your own website is great, but just remember there are many more tools available to you.

4.) Be Patient

Perhaps the most important thing you should know about the online market is that what ever industry you choose, there is no get-rich-quick method to make you a millionaire.  Just like any other business, your online business will require patience and persistence.  If your business doesn’t become an overnight success, simply keep pushing and don’t panic.  By taking the time to learn the ins and outs of e-commerce, you too can have your slice of the pie as this industry has more than enough money to go around.

Though you will not find it on too many store shelves, open-source software is a major hit in the internet world and the web hosting market is solid proof.  These applications are highly capable of powering websites and all the complex operations that come along with them.  Some of the most widely used open-source software programs are e-commerce shopping carts as they allow just about anyone to open up their own web-based store.  There are several carts on the market but few of them are as unique as nopCommerce.

What is nopCommerce?

nopCommerce is a stable, fully customizable, highly usable e-commerce system.  What makes this open-source application stand out from all the rest is the underlying technologies.  Unlike most similar carts scripted in open-source languages such as PHP or Perl, this one is written in Microsoft’s proprietary ASP.NET 3.5 and thrives off a MS SQL back-end database.  This gives nopCommerce the best of both worlds has it is extremely powerful and very cost effective.  In fact, the shopping cart is totally free to use.

nopCommerce Features and Capabilities

The nopCommerce software is easy to use and perfectly suited for online shop owners who have outgrown their existing systems.  How easy to use is it?  nopCommerce can be installed, setup and maintained by virtually anyone possessing the basic computing and website administration skills.  A secure and scalable e-commerce platform, it offers a user-friendly interface and administration tools that allow you to effectively manage your online storefront and customers.  You have control over features such as discounts, coupons, wish lists, tax options, shipping methods and much more.  nonCommerce is capable of handling multiple languages and supports most of the popular gateways including Authorize.net, 2Checkout, Google Checkout and PayPal among others.

nopCommerce provides a catalog frontend and allows complete administration on the back-end, delivering everything you need to quickly set up a fully functioning professional storefront.

This e-commerce solution comes integrated with a variety of great features that are easy to use for the new and inexperienced user, yet powerful enough to suite the needs of seasoned merchants with the most demanding operations.  Offering a built-in shopping cart, easy catalog management, shipping calculation, credit card processing, template customization and a wealth of other powerful tools, there isn’t much you can’t do with this amazing e-commerce system.  The nopCommerce package comes with access to a well organized base of resources, technical support and valuable information provided by a fast growing community.

A Solid Choice for Open-source

The fact that you will not find too many open-source programs boasting the ASP.NET tag makes nopCommerce something truly special.  This flexible e-commerce system is growing rapidly in popularity, making it easier to land a web hosting provides that offers support for the application.  Because the software is relatively new, it remains to be seen whether or not nopCommerce can hold a candle to well known open-source shopping carts such as osCommerce, Agora and Cube Cart.  However, the software has generated a lot of buzz in a very short time and as of now, industry reviews are indicating that this e-commerce platform is all good.