With increasing spending power and affordability, the e-commerce business in Africa is on an upsurge. More and more people are now shopping online. It not only saves your time, but also exonerates you from the hassle of exploring and raiding the market to buy the right product for yourself. E-commerce is the significant asset for your business which not only increases your brand visibility and reach, but also provides you a large pool of potential buyers.

Jumia and Konga are the optimum examples of the lucrative business opportunities for e-commerce websites in Africa.

Ever wondered, what’s the mechanism behind the operations of these successful e-commerce websites? These websites bestow a lot of investments and endeavor to provide a hassle-free browsing experience to their customers and visitors. They take services of web hosting companies to look after all their website posting, data management, website traffic management and data security needs.

A new sphere

Web hosting is a new trend to promote your business online. Most of the businesses avail the services of web hosting companies. These web hosting companies take care of all your needs right from the stage of making your website available online to be accessed by your customers, till the process of storing the data and ensuring its security. Web hosting services work by storing your website files in high-powered computers (web servers) connected to a very fast network. When someone types in your web address, the Internet connects to the web server holding your website files and then transfers your website information back to their computer. From there they can surf and view the pages of your website.

Why web hosting?

Trustworthy web hosting is indubitably the pivotal and imperative part of constructing a good website. Web hosting is the deciding factor in how your website will be presented to your customers and viewers. Researches show that the very first website visiting experience portrays the potential of your business. The availability of your website 24/7 is the crucial element. Availing the web hosting services from a good source is highly significant to rank amidst the top websites on Google and other search engines. It is an investment which influences your business’ growth.

Deciding factors

There are various aspects which a customer will keep in check, before availing the services from the web hosting company. These are:

– Down Time: Technical glitches often impact the smooth operations of a website. Down time is the time period for which a website is inaccessible by the customers and viewers due to the maintenance and fixing by the engineers. A reliable web hosting company means little or no down time. It subsequently ensures the efficient and efficacious operations of website and web applications.

– Web Hosting Platforms: Just imagine your experience, visiting a sluggish website. How vexatious it could be. A stagnant website means losing your customers to your competitors. Prompt loading and well-presented website is the biggest asset of any business. Most of the web hosting companies operate through traditional hard disk drives (HDD), but technology means transition. The new cutting edge technology promotes the use of Solid State Drives (SDD). SDDs are not only superior in terms of faster hosting speeds, it also ensures better data security, faster execution requests and reliable performance. It simply means extra benefits and value for your investment.

– Data Centers: Most of the web hosting companies outsource their services because of the inadequate space available. Most of the web hosting companies have one data center. But there are several web hosting companies, which have multiple data centers and are located strategically to provide the hassle free experience to the end clients. The multiple data centers not only lead to flexibility in data sharing, but also ensures high speed.

– Colocations: Colocation saves you from the hassle of owning your own data center. It provides you with the freedom to store your equipment in a cabinet located in a secure data center with a public IP address, bandwidth, and power supplied by the service provider to your server. Few companies offer multiple colocation plans with a diverse variety of rack spaces to choose from. This is a cost effective method to manage your expenses on IT infrastructure.

African perspective

African population is burgeoning rapidly. With the increasing population, the e-commerce business is also flourishing across the continent. With more and more number of e-commerce websites coming in the picture, the business opportunities for web hosting service providers are also sprouting up.
Investing into the web hosting segment is certainly a hit and successful business idea which is not only a logical move, but it will also prove to be a remunerative investment in the long run. Establishing a data center in Africa could be a move worth millions in the developing countries like South Africa, Ghana, Kenya. But in other countries viz. Mozambique, Niger and Malawi providing the web hosting services from the point of origin of your web hosting company would be a smart move.

With rapidly growing and expanding internet services in many African countries, the future of web hosting companies in Africa seems mirthful. The key to invest is patience, strategic approach and scrupulous market research. The e-commerce platform is expanding its roots rapidly hence, the future of web hosting is certainly fruitful. Africa being a new market provides the realm of untapped opportunities in this segment.