Web Hosting & E-Commerce - Frequently Asked Questions

What is e-commerce?
E-commerce is the ability to conduct business with customers, suppliers, or partners on the Internet. This includes online billing, online customer support, scheduling people and resources, lead generation, accessing applications, and accessing databases.

What is a merchant account?
A merchant account is an optional feature. A merchant account is a commercial bank account established by contractual agreement between your business and a chosen bank. You need to have one in order to accept credit card payments online. You can then conduct online transactions via payment gateway.

What is a payment gateway?
An online shopping cart application posts and communicates order information through a payment gateway, which allows your bank's payment processor to authorize, process, and manage online transactions. The payment gateway approves or declines orders in real time. If it's approved, the order is then processed as pending. You can access the Gateway Graphical User Interface (sometimes also referred to as the Payment Gateway front end) in order to complete the transaction. Once the order has been shipped, you collect the money through the payment gateway.

What is a shopping cart application?
Shopping carts are a key component of online stores. Your Website must display them in order to sell products or services online. A shopping cart application allows your customers to browse your products and services, which are presented as images with text descriptions and prices. The shopping cart itself is a virtual shopping basket that allows your customers to keep track of what they want to buy. They can purchase multiple items in whatever quantity they'd like.

What is a domain name?
A domain name is a name that you choose as your Web address. It's what people type into their Web browsers to get to your Web site.

How much Mail Box and SQL Quota do I get in each Hosting Plan?You can use as much SQL space and e-mail space as you want under your total Summary Disk Space. This means if you want to use 100MB for a SQL Server 2000 database, you can as long as you use only 100MB for web space and e-mail A major concern from our customers has been how much e-mail space they will use if they are heavy e-mail user. The response in most cases is under 1MB. This is because the system is based on the average utilization of your mail box on our servers. So if you download your e-mail frequently, you e-mail usage will be next to nill.