Related articles:
nopCommerce Tips: Your First NopCommerce Site, Part 1: Setting Up a nopCommerce Project
nopCommerce Tips: Your First NopCommerce Site, Part 2: Customizing Your nopCommerce Store
nopCommerce Tips: Your First NopCommerce Site, Part 3: Preparing for Deployment
nopCommerce Tips: Your First NopCommerce Site, Part 4: Deploying to Your Arvixe Server
In our previous articles, we went through the steps to set up a nopCommerce project, customize it, get it web-ready, and upload it to an Arvixe hosting environment. Now we’re going to start looking at our “go-live” checklist, with an eye toward the needs of an e-commerce site.
SSL Certificate – In my article “mojoPortal Tips: Installing SSL on Your Arvixe-Hosted mojoPortal Site“, I outline the steps for getting your SSL certificate generated by Arvixe for your Arvixe-hosted account. Keep in mind that an SSL certificate will require a dedicated IP address for your site, and that both are (modest) additional costs.
Merchant Account – This is an aspect that should be handled by your client, but it’s quite probable that they’ll look to you for advice/assistance in the matter. If your client already has a business bank account, find out if the bank offers merchant account services as part of their products for their small business clients.
Payment Gateway – a payment gateway is the means by which you transfer information from your e-commerce application to your customer’s merchant account/bank. Popular payment gateways to consider are Authorize.net or PayPal.
PCI-DSS Compliance – Most payment processors will require your e-commerce solution to be PCI-DSS compliant. Third-party services can provide regular testing and certification; check to see if your client’s merchant account or payment gateway offers free PCI-DSS scanning as a part of their product. Depending on what country you’re in, you may have other requirements to fulfill as well.
Shipping Methods – this varies widely by region, accepted shipping methods, and cost constraints. However, nopCommerce integrates with a number of third-party shippers to auto-calculate shipping costs via services offered by the shippers. Determine what shipping methods your client will use, and then plan on doing the legwork to set up the connections for auto-calculation.
There are quite a few extra bells and whistles involved in setting up an e-commerce site; nopCommerce makes it a great deal easier, as does a good hosting provider.
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Looking for quality nopCommerce Hosting? Look no further than Arvixe Web Hosting!
