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Compliance with industry security practices is one of the most important issues facing ecommerce hosting. In 2004, the Payment Card Industry (PCI), a consortium of credit card companies, created the Data Security Standards. These standards were designed to safeguard consumer's confidential information and are now enforced by contract with most merchants. Consumers have some comfort in spending money with companies that protect their confidential credit information and, in turn, the practice makes good business sense.

Today's standards are comprised of twelve main regulations, each divided into numerous sub-regulations. These range from technology guidelines to carefully defined administrative practices. One of the technology regulations involves the encryption of information during its storage and transmittal. A firm must also maintain control over both physical and digital access to the information.

A company that processes, transmits or stores confidential credit card data should follow the PCI standards. Although small to medium sized businesses may find it difficult to do so, there are numerous PCI-compliant ecommerce solutions from online shopping cart software to ecommerce hosting. Compliance is guaranteed because these solutions satisfy the PCI standards and allow businesses to focus on creating revenue.

A reliable PCI-complaint hosting provider is mandatory for any company planning to enter the ecommerce segment. Most of the times it is easy to evaluate an ecommerce hosting with the help of a third party opinion website, however, it is always helpful to check for some references also. As this kind of a business relationship is very intricate, it always helps to choose a hosting provider with a proven track record.

Make sure to consider the other benefits available in ecommerce hosting, not just the security capabilities that are available in all ecommerce solutions. Most hosting companies will provide online shopping cart software to their partners as well. It is a great help when your hosting provider is familiar with the software packages that you use. This allows them to provide the best technical support, which results in less downtime and provides you a web site that your customers are comfortable with shopping there.

Running a successful ecommerce store can be challenging. It's easy to focus on only product selection along with marketing strategies. Probably the most important thing is to ease your customers mind about giving out their personal and bank information when shopping at your site. Making sure you partner with a secure and PCI-compliant ecommerce hosting provider will make the most sense in the long run.