Some of the members of this forum are contented to remain resellers. But most of the members here aspire to become webhosts themselves, sooner or later! Some of the members here are already successful web hosting companies today... having got there after trodding the rocky road.

So when one wishes to start designing a new website for his new webhosting company, is it wise to include a "RESELLER LINK" on the site nowadays?

Why am I asking this? Because clients may feel "ripped off" when they can easily see that their hosts are offering as much as a 50% discount of the same package to resellers. They could simply contact such resellers and bargain for the same type of package at a slightly lower rate!

On the other hand, if a "RESELLER LINK" is not displayed prominently, potential resellars may assume that this hosting company does not have any reseller scheme at all.

Isn't this problem a dual-edged sword... like a Catch-22 situation... because "if you do, you're in trouble; if you don't, you're still in trouble?"

Have any web hosting companies been thinking about or affected by this phenomenon yet?

With the number of web hosting companies increasing, with the number of resellers multiplying many times more, with clients increasingly becoming aware of these pricing facts... what could be some of the ideal_solutions to this problem?

Thanks in advance for your answers. They would be of great help.

Learner

[Edited by Learner on 09-21-2000 at 03:01 AM]

hmm.. ok, let play devil advocate again :)

Say I have a webhosting site that offers plans for $X. I also have a reseller plan that offers a master account for $XX, plus a 50% markdown on accounts sold through that reseller.

Potential customer Y shows up at the 'front door' looking for webspace. He or she sees price list X, but also notices deal Y (the reseller plan). The hamster starts running on his little wheel, and customer Y decided to get into the hosting game instead [insert snowboarding, ferrari's etc].

Ok, customer Y is now a webhost. To break even on this deal and get rich he needs to sell accounts and advertise, drawing in clients, friends and what not. Say it works... This one customer who showed up about to plonk down his $9.95 a month, now pays three times as much (plus extra domains), AND is generating extra income for both him/herself, as well as me. The prime idea would be to have no straight accounts at all, but have everyone directly under me as a reseller. Hence the original single, harmless little button with the magic word on it *lol*

Worked on me. I went to get a simple $10 a month plan and ended up with a reseller account and am perfectly happy with same. :) One day I might get as far as server god, but for now it suits my plans just fine.

Economics will dicate getting 20 (or 20 000) clients at 50% will be better an 1 at 100% - not including hardware costs of course.

So how close was I guys? *smile*

Greg Moore
http://www.akashik.net

oh... umm. solutions.. *forgot*

well from the above post of mine, I'd say it's a solution in itself. Maybe you could offer the reselling option as an 'upgrade' AFTER they sign up?

Umm, build the reselling section separate and advertise it only at forums like this maybe?

Still, as mentioned, maybe it needn't have a solution as it's essentially another plan on top of the ones you use already, but serves an alternate purpose - one of which most people may not be interested in anyway. After all reselling isn't a dirty word anymore. People resell phone plans, dail up connections, webspace, Avon, Tupperware... you get the idea. I didn't buy my laptop directly from Compaq, but a business solutions provider. Commission and mark-up are essentially reselling as well, and I can't remember giving the check-out operator a dirty look last time I bought milk knowing the corner store got it cheaper than me. :)

Greg Moore
http://www.akashik.net

THere really should be no problem with putting a reseller link on your page. WHat you have to understand is that a person look for hosting is only going to have one domain, not always the case but usually. SO what we do is we charge 59.95/month for a reseller account and then they can resell sub accounts for like 2.95. Well a average business is not going to want to pay that 59.95 when they can get a non reseller account that will do everything they want it too for 19.95. THe other thing you can do is place a statement advising that reseller acounts must have a web page dealing with hosting. IE a lawyer who owns several companys and decides to take advantage of your reselling offer wouldnt want to pay someone to design yet another web page for him IE the hosting web page, only people truly in the business of reselling would have one.

THeres really no perfect solutions. But hopefully this helped.

Well what you could also do is, dont publish your reseller pricing on the page. Ask the person interested to fill up a form and send the info by e-mail! :) Not a lot of people would want to fill up a form and then wait for the email and stuff like that, unless they are bored ;) I know I wouldnt.

Thanks akashik, cbaker17 & kunal for your posts.

I would also really like the big successful webhosting companies in this forum to give their valuable insight on this issue as well.

Plus, anybody else who has been or is perplexed with this issue... please post. Especially if you have a bright idea.

I would also appreciate if we could debate about any plausible negative impact in showing such a RESELLER link prominently on a web hosting company's site.

Learner

Here's another thing to consider when you start thinking about how reseller discounts are viewed by the casual visitor just looking for a home: resellers, for the most part, provide their own support and billing infrastructure to their clients. Part of the overhead associated with any account a host might sell is the time spent on support and the costs associated with processing payments, for that account alone. This doesn't take into consideration the cost associated with having another account on an existing server, or having to set up another server, or having to pay for bandwidth overages because of miscalculations, etc. Having a reseller take care of those types of things allows them to get an account more cheaply, as they can then figure out what their overhead is going to be and charge appropriately. In addition, you'll see that most reseller accounts are a bit higher in price than regular accounts - this is because resellers, in general, tend to require more support as they add more clients and things start rolling uphill.

We have no qualms about listing the reseller information on our page (of course, since it is there, after all). If people are interested, they make inquiries, and they are informed about the duties for which resellers are accountable. Most people aren't interested when they find out that it is real work, or they aren't interested because they can't/won't be able to provide support, or they just don't want to mess around with multiple domains - they just want their spot on the web. No one has ever questioned the logic behind us placing all the info on the page or questioned the pricing or anything else associated with resellers. Part of it is because most people are cognizant enough to understand that different types of accounts require different types of pricing. And part of it is because everything is spelled out right there, so everyone knows where they stand.

Originally posted by Annette
how reseller discounts are viewed by the casual visitor

Annette, that's exactly one of the types of feedback which I am looking for... from the viewpoint of today's "casual visitor" or "serious visitor"... thanks for understanding and getting straight to the point... as usual :)

PART OF IT is because most people are cognizant enough to understand...

Yes... that is exactly why I started this thread. I would also like others to throw light on the other PART OF IT.

Learner

Thanx Annette that was really interesting. That was common sense, I wonder how I overlooked that ;)