When setting up an online store (or any site that accepts payments) it's important that the end user be completely confident in the security of your website. The best way to do this is to buy and install an SSL Certificate to encrypt the transactions between your web server and your clients browser.
If you plan on using a SSL Certificate on your website, your hosting provider will require you to pay for a dedicated IP address. Without it your certificate will simply not work.
This is due to the way that HTTP Request Headers and SSL work.

