Planning to take your business online? Opt for low-cost web hosting service

Keep the initial cost at Rs 10,000-15,000 a year, and scale up as your business grows

When entrepreneurs take their businesses online, one challenge they face is deciding on the web hosting service they should use. A person can take his business online for as little as Rs 8,000-10,000 a year, while the sky is the limit on the higher side.

When foraying online, it helps to start small. “Many entrepreneurs make the mistake of waiting for the perfect product or service, and also in judging the demand. If a business has decided to go online, or an individual wants to launch an e-commerce website, the focus should be on acquiring an online presence as soon as possible,” says Mandeep Manocha, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO), Cashify.in.

Manocha says there is never a perfect product. The business owner needs to get online, take the customers’ feedback, and keep making iterations based on these interactions. The product or service has to keep evolving based on the needs of customers and growing competition. It also helps to start small, with a cheaper plan from a hosting platform, and then go for a more expensive product as the business scales up. When Manocha and his co-founders started Cashify.in, they were on a UK-based web hosting platform that cost them Rs 10,000-15,000 a year. As more users came in, they shifted to Amazon Web Service. The expenditure on their platform is now growing in tandem with their business.

Before you decide to go online, evaluate your purpose and future requirements. If the purpose is just to provide information, you can opt for a low-cost plan from any of the hosting websites. Such plans cost between Rs 8,000 and Rs 25,000 a year. The price increases if you need higher storage, if you expect a higher number of visitors, and need a larger number of email addresses. 

If you are starting an e-commerce platform, you will need the services of a payment gateway, and also a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate, which tells customers that the data on your website is encrypted and secure. 

If you have a limited number of products to sell, list them on an online market place such as Flipkart or Amazon, and provide a link to your product page, instead of selling them directly on your website. This will help you cut down on the many costs that come with selling directly on your own website. 

Another option for those planning to start an e-commerce website is to opt for a platform like Shopify or BigCommerce that provides all the required tools. If you think you'll scale up your website in the future, opt for a web hosting company that makes migration easy. 

Read online reviews of such service providers to understand the challenges existing users have faced in migrating. Before you choose, the key is to estimate the amount of traffic you expect. Hosting platforms generally charge based on storage and bandwidth usage. 

If you expect only a few visitors to your site, the bandwidth required will be low. But if the sales of your product pick up suddenly, expect your bandwidth requirement to surge. 

Going online is easy and has become the preferred route for many. “You don’t need to spend on wholesalers’ commissions, retail space, and so on,” says Aamod Wagh, founder and CEO of TigerTech, a start-up focused on home security products. Once you have established your online business, you can gradually build an offline presence through tie-ups with retail chains.