The question I had is where do I host and maintain my website? I went to the only resource I knew, my husband. When I went on-line and looked around, I found there are a lot of companies that do just this. But how do I find the right one? I spoke with a contact who had just started her own business and she went with Monstercommerce. I asked what was it about Monstercommerce that made her pick them and she had no reason why. I couldn't understand that answer and felt compelled to look deaper into my decision. I did some research on Monstercommerce and their capabilities and was quite pleased, but I put my husband to the test to ensure I had the right choice. He started googling ecommerce to get answers, but it was an online catalog site that led him to shopping carts and he stumbled on a forum which had all types of merchants giving their reviews of the companies they merchant through. No better site to help in this choice than those that give true testimonies!

In our research, we found out what my true needs were for Kaboodle Kids:
1) visability - SEO (search engine optimization) was important - SEO friendly, meaning that my site is more apt to be picked up by yahoo and google and I need help to get me a higher ranking than other sites.

2) to have an amazon like shopping experience with shopping lists and browsing capabilities, basically a sophisticated on line shopping experience with backend tools to help me understand what panels the customer is viewing.

3) ability to support an affiliate model in the future - which rewards those sites that drive other customers my way.

4) overall quality and support.

These forums told me that other merchants support Volusion. Volusion was started by ex-Del employees that seem to know their technology. As I am finding out, Volusion does what Monstercommerce does and... alittle bit more.

If you are insterested in the forum, check it out at ecartreviews.com\forums.