# Question about starting a website, big cartel, and SSL.



## aperfectcircle05 (Aug 7, 2010)

Hello everyone - 

I am starting a site. Haven't purchased anything yet. I will be selling 5 shirts starting off and working my way to having about 20. I am going to higher a web designer to do my website. I want to go ahead and get the domain and all that stuff. I will be using Big Cartel for selling but have a question. This talk about the SSL. Will I need to add that to my package wherever I decide to buy my domain (hostgator, fatcow, etc) or does Big Cartel take care of that? I don't even really know what the hell I am asking it's just been asked of me and I really don't want to buy something I don't need...or leave out something I shouldn't.


Advice and opinions are greatly appreciated. 

Cheers!


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## ReThink Clothing (Jan 15, 2008)

No need to worry about SSL, the payments from BC go through paypal and are handled on their secure servers.


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## Splash-X (Sep 7, 2008)

Since your hosting provider uses PayPal for payments and the customers are transferred to PayPal's secure site to make the payment, there is no need for a SSL as ReThink has pointed out.



If you were accepting payments directly on your own website using a Merchant Account (with Authorize.NET, Chase PaymentTech or another similar technology) you should have a SSL certificate for your site.


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