Question About E-commerce Website

[Guest maximus234uk]

Hi evryone,

This is my first post, I've only recently found the site. I'm hoping that someone will enlighten me about a few things. I'm just in the process of buying an E-commerce site from a designer. The site's virtually complete and looks ok. A little bit of research has led me to believe the e-commerce engine is cubecart. Everything seems ok. I asked the designer who is also hosting the site if I could download it to my hard drive so I could add products to it, which I thought I could do. I was told I can only update the site through the internet and that I couldn't download it to my hard drive. I'm a little confused here. Is this correct. If so How can I back the site up, how can I move it to another host? If I've paid for th site shouldn't I have a hard copy of it, what if this guy goes bust?

What I'd like to know is; is this correct. This is my first e-commerce site so I don't know if this is normal.

thanks

[vokf]

To address your concerns about support/recovery if you part company with your developer:

Make sure you have a complete account backup of your store, and know how to do this yourself.

This back-up should contain your database, files and email - so basically, your entire set-up.

Download the back-ups to your local PC. Make a point of doing it every week or so (more when you get busier or add lots of products)

In the event of problems, you know you've got CubeCart, and should have no problems finding a host and skilled people to support you.

Jason

[Guest Brivtech]

Do you have any reasons to doubt the company you are using?

From their point of view, letting a customer have access to system files can end up in disaster when the customer is inexperienced, and ends up breaking everything. There's not really a comfortable middle-ground. Either let the customer administer everything, or administer everything for the customer.

I can understand your concerns, and it would be reassuring for the company to provide you with guarantees or reassurances to satisfy your concerns.

[Guest]

I can remember when I was first introduced to many of these concepts, and I dare say that I would have been confused by some of the posts made here. So to be as helpful as possible, let me clarify things a bit.

CubeCart uses 2 aspects of the web server (the computer that hosts your website on the Internet) to perform its duties - PHP and MySQL.

PHP is the scripting language that defines the logic of the system.

MySQL is the database backend that holds the data that defines your store.

There are also template files that define the look and feel of your store.

Downloading the files from your web hosting account would not be sufficient to do a "backup" of your store nor would it be sufficient to move your store to a new webhost. You would also need the database to do either of these.

Most web hosts have a utility to back up your databases - to download a copy of them that you can upload at a later time if the need arises.

Many web hosts also have a backup utility that will back up everything, files and database as well as email accounts and so on. In my experience, these "everything" backups don't always work when trying to restore your account, but they do contain everything, which you can restore bit by bit. Your server administrator can also do a manual restore from one of these backups, so they ARE useful.

In the course of my work, I periodically download a copy of my databases to my desktop computer, as well as a copy of the files from my web host account. That way, I have a backup even if the server administrator fails to have a proper backup. Many times it's quicker for me to restore a corrupted file from my desktop than to submit a request to the server adminstrator.

I hope that this clarifies WHY your developer said that downloading the files would not work for the purpose you asked. As mentioned above, you would also need a copy of your database.

Also as mentioned above, newbies CAN destroy the system if they are not careful. When you muck about in the guts of your web hosting account, things can break if you don't know what you're doing.

On the flip side however, if you take your time and read about how the system works (either online or with some of the many helpful books available at your library or bookstore), you would be amazed at how much you can learn to do in a month or so.

[Guest maximus234uk]

Ok Thanks everyone for taking time to reply. I feel better informed now than I did. I've no reason to doubt my designer, I just thought it puts me in a vunerable position if we were to fall out or if he went out of business.

Thank you all