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These days, compliance with the industry's security practices is one of the most significant concerns regarding ecommerce hosting. In the year 2004, an association of credit card providers developed the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standards. While they were at first only recommendations for keeping consumers' personal information secure, they now have the force of contract in most merchant agreements. And since customers are more willing to deal with a company which protects their credit information, these guidelines are helpful to everyone involved.

Currently there are 12 major requirements which include everything from technical guidelines to well laid out business practices. One of the technical requirements is the encryption of data for storage and transmission. Who has access to the data both digitally and physically must also be rigorously controlled

Any company that processes transmits, or stores credit card information should adhere to the PCI standards. Doing so can be quite a challenge, especially for small- and medium-sized companies. Fortunately there are many PCI-compliant ecommerce solutions from online shopping cart software to ecommerce hosting. These solutions guarantee compliance and take the burden off of sellers and allow them focus on the business they know best.

Small businesses trying to enter the ecommerce market need a trustworthy PCI-compliance hosting provider. Frequently, third-party evaluations of ecommerce hosting on opinion web sites are available. However, it is important to also request references. It is essential that a highly credentialed hosting provider be chosen due to the close business relationship between the two.

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.