Who will host the ecommerce software?
For small companies without dedicated IT staff and those who are just testing ecommerce, hiring an ecommerce web site builder from an external company is probably the best choice. If you already host your own web site and have technical staff to build and maintain the site, you can host the software yourself: you buy and install the software on your own servers, purchase an SSL certificate, and integrate the store with your web site. Be aware that even if you host the bulk of your web site internally, you can still outsource the hosting of the e-commerce sections. This split will be transparent to site visitors. Hosting it yourself gives you greater control over the customization and integration of the online store with the rest of your web site. However, it can take a lot of time for an ecommerce web site builder to construct a web site, even if you start with a packaged ecommerce solution. Plus, ongoing maintenance can be a drain on your internal resources. Outsourcing it reduces the
