Even thought they don't state any uptime facts they do say that they offer an uptime that is above the industry average so you can estimate that we are looking at 99.7% to 99.8% uptime which is very satisfying for a customer to hear.

As BigCommerce are a large company you wont run into many problems when we talk about reliability as they have a strong and solid network and server backbone that can handle the largest volume of traffic, so as a small business you are in safe hands.

The best part of hosting with BigCommerce is that they are Level 1 PCi compliant which basically means that network runs on stringent security measures which are regularly carried out every 3 months to ensure a strong, stable, hacker free environment.

Unlike other hosting providers, you will need to signup for a store at Bigcommerce to benefit from their hosting which is great if you want to build a store using a web building tool or eCommerce system. If you aren't checking off any of these points then you might as well look elsewhere.

If you do want to press forward with BigCommerce then you will be delighted with all the features that come with hosting, because at the end of the day you will get the web builder, analytics, monitoring, software templates and a strong network of servers. You will also benefit from the impressive content delivery network which will bring faster page loads times and much happier customers.

BigCommerce go all out when we take a look at the support they offer, and you cant beat a company that offers 24/7/365 support to its customers, apart from how fast the replies are and how far spread they offer support.

They provide phone, livechat and email, and they also have a knowledge base called the BigCommerce University, video tutorials and the ability to communicate with other store owners to ask questions.

• 24/7/365 support
• Live chat and phone
• Community help
• BigCommerce University

When you come to paying for a BigCommerce service you have to remember that Hosting isn't their main service and this only comes as part of a package, so in order to benefit from the hosting you will have to buy a plan. Now, with most shared hosting solutions you can pick them up for $5 per month, but BigCommerce comes in at $29.95.

However if you need all the extra features then the price you are paying is more than reasonable when you think about the social shop, 60 payment gateways to choose from, unlimited products and 3GB of storage. If you just need shared hosting solution then you might want to think about going for a hosting focused company.

As I keep saying, BigCommerce aren't solely focused around hosting so they don't offer all the features and tools you would see at a company that only sells hosting services, nonetheless you have a user-friendly interface where you can manage anything from your website right through to your email accounts and storage limits.

All updates are put through and tested by BigCommerce so you don't have to worry about how to do something, or if you are going to end up taking your site down because of a wrong decision. Any installation like this is done behind the scenes, allowing you to focus on selling.