I'm building an e-commerce companion to a niche blog, and would like to know if an SSL certificate is right for my situation. My new host offers everything but an SSL certificate for free, and I wonder if I ought to have one on a ZenCart store with several different affiliate programs in my niche. The certificate itself is cheap through my registrar, like $15/ year, but it will be over twice that for a dedicated IP. Considering that I'll have no products that aren't affiliate links, is this a necessary frill for start-up? At some point, the customer will redirect to the affiliate for payment processing, so as I won't be collecting their information on the site, I wonder if I need the secured aspect at all. On a side note, can anyone tell me how shopping carts work with multiple affiliates? What if they buy from different programs/ advertisers? Will they be taken to each in the order selected? I'm having a little trouble wrapping my mind around how this works.
Hi, I am confused --are you going to sell something using your shopping cart installation? IF not, and your not collecting any information other than perhaps, an email address, there is no reason to get an SSL cert. Sam
I am going to be promoting the products of other sites, such as Amazon, though they won't be the primary one, through affiliate programs as I said. I have the shopping cart so they can pick multiple items from my page and give me multiple sales to different advertisers.
I would get an SSL to be on the safe side, it gives buyers confidence too They're not that expensive anyway...
I would definitely suggest you getting an SSL certificate if you're going to sell anything. It is really something that will make sure any kind of personal information gets encrypted when the buyer enters his data. You really don't want to be responsible of an abuser getting his personal information or credit card details and getting sued for not having a secure method of checkout.