If you decide to start up a web site to supplement your sales on eBay, you’ll probably need a hosting service. The hosts listed in this section are affordable and popular; they have plenty of features for both beginning and experienced sellers.
AOL Hometown
http://hometown.aol.com
You can use this site, which is America Online’s (AOL’s) hosting service, without being a member of AOL. It’s an ideal venue for beginners; you are presented with 100 web page templates to help jump-start your design. You can use a web-based page creation tool to start creating your site. Another plus: you end up with a site with 12MB of storage space for free.
Bigstep.com
http://go.bigstep.com
Bigstep is a typical web hosting service for small businesses. First, you can sign up to host your online store for a free 30-day trial period. Then, you can choose one of two hosting packages that cost $29.95 or $49.95 per month. The $29.95 per month option lets you sell 20 catalog items in an online catalog; the more expensive Bigstep Pro allows you to maintain a much larger sales catalog. The advantage of using a service like Bigstep is that you get help obtaining a domain name, maintaining a backup copy of your site for security purposes, and marketing your business.
Microsoft Small Business
http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness
Sometimes, it pays to partner with a big name for your web host. When you sign up for an account with Microsoft Small Business, you have to pay a little more per month for hosting, but you get a payment system that includes a shopping cart and checkout buttons. If you use Microsoft FrontPage to create your web site, consider using Microsoft Small Business to host your online business. You also get to use the FrontPage Server Extensions, which is a set of server software that enables you to do one-step publishing as well as set up online forms.
AOL Hometown
http://hometown.aol.com
You can use this site, which is America Online’s (AOL’s) hosting service, without being a member of AOL. It’s an ideal venue for beginners; you are presented with 100 web page templates to help jump-start your design. You can use a web-based page creation tool to start creating your site. Another plus: you end up with a site with 12MB of storage space for free.
Bigstep.com
http://go.bigstep.com
Bigstep is a typical web hosting service for small businesses. First, you can sign up to host your online store for a free 30-day trial period. Then, you can choose one of two hosting packages that cost $29.95 or $49.95 per month. The $29.95 per month option lets you sell 20 catalog items in an online catalog; the more expensive Bigstep Pro allows you to maintain a much larger sales catalog. The advantage of using a service like Bigstep is that you get help obtaining a domain name, maintaining a backup copy of your site for security purposes, and marketing your business.
Microsoft Small Business
http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness
Sometimes, it pays to partner with a big name for your web host. When you sign up for an account with Microsoft Small Business, you have to pay a little more per month for hosting, but you get a payment system that includes a shopping cart and checkout buttons. If you use Microsoft FrontPage to create your web site, consider using Microsoft Small Business to host your online business. You also get to use the FrontPage Server Extensions, which is a set of server software that enables you to do one-step publishing as well as set up online forms.
