I am seeing more and more request for what I call silly prices, and more and more offers to meet them.

For instance I saw $10.00 a year the other day and someone matched it. I see offers for 75 or 100 Gig of transfer with a 1 Gig of space for as low as $30.00 a month. I have to wonder is business that bad that you have to give away half a server to pay the bills?

I have made a few good deals here to get business but nothing like that.

For $10.00 a year 83 cents a month I am not even getting out of bed.

I completely agree. If you cant profit, you cant stay in business, you cant provide good support. Well, yes you can....for the short term, but not the long term. Eventually you either raise prices or close. Either way, you leave a lot of pissed off clients who feel they got screwed over and want their $0.84 back even if it means going to court :rolleyes:

Kids can offer such things for such prices since they dont have anything to lose by closing shop, the real hosts cant.

Unfortunately, too many will end up going under because of the low prices they offer.

Only if someone has the financial backing to carry them through, then they will survive.

Well,

What can I say? :rolleyes: Real business will keep on running. Any fake attempt will meet the end like .com

Enough said. :D

Maybe those are scams. They just take your money and shutdown the company when it gets enuff moolah.

Do a search on Shang in this forum. He is famous for doing that.

I started off trying to compete like that on here, i quickly gave up as it is obviously not profitable, our prices are not that high for the UK and UK customers are willing to pay our prices so there is no point in trying to sell everything for $1 anymore its just not worth it.

Well, I wouldn't necessarily say business is bad per-say, but I did see those offering 75gb bandwidth and 1-2gb space for 30 dollars a month or less and I can only asume their either on a rackshack server, or one similar to that, or they are on a cogent line. Either way I don't think you'll ever be able to fully equate quality with those cheap of prices. It leaves no room to expand. I personally would never want to share a server with someone who was getting 1-2gb storage, unlimited domains and 75gb bandwidth... anyone needing to buy that much is almost certaintly going to use it. 3-5 of those clients would easily fill up most servers which means they hardly pay for the server at all....

Oh well... eventually we will see a cleansing soto speak within the next 2 years and only the strong will survive. So while it sickens me to see those low prices I remind myself that wht is less than 0.75% of the entire hosting market. Also that I know, eventually everything will even out and those offering things for a rediclous amount will find it harder and harder to do business. All in due time I suppose.

I am personally sick of trying to compete with people with extremely low prices, myself. I've stopped trying to find many of my customers online because they demand so much but only want to pay so little.

What else sickens me is the fact that these hosts that cater to them don't seem to have the adequate support (from stories I've heard) to begin with. It's all a game to some people but in the long run they are hurting others.

In any case where I have to compete with someone because a person inquires about hosting then tries to compare me with another host is .... "You get what you pay for." In many cases that has proven true.

Originally posted by alohahosts
Unfortunately, too many will end up going under because of the low prices they offer.

Why unfortunately?

The problem is, hosting is a service industry, something that many customers nowadays only learn after some experiences. But even some hosts don't know this fact :)

You cannot compete - in business there will always be another who will do it cheaper. They will rarely be around to enjoy success though. I have learnt, in business, to never be intimidated by competitors pricing, rather stick with fair prices that make profit. You live a more comfortable life like this.

I used to be in the retail trade and we used to get people say "WHAT!!! The shop in the next town does these .50p cheaper than you! Im not buying that!" We would laugh and point out that it would cost .70p to get to the next town.

It is true that you always will have competitors underprice you - just dont ever get intimidated by it, that all.

:)

Originally posted by Webdude
Kids can offer such things for such prices since they dont have anything to lose by closing shop, the real hosts cant.

Yep that's it. Kids and Scams can afford that. That's why I always say DEMAND YOUR HOST TO HAVE A CERTIFICATE and if you are a LEGITIMATE host then GET A CERTIFICATE... it really separates the scum from the good. ;)

Originally posted by mlovick
You cannot compete - in business there will always be another who will do it cheaper. They will rarely be around to enjoy success though. I have learnt, in business, to never be intimidated by competitors pricing, rather stick with fair prices that make profit. You live a more comfortable life like this.

I used to be in the retail trade and we used to get people say "WHAT!!! The shop in the next town does these .50p cheaper than you! Im not buying that!" We would laugh and point out that it would cost .70p to get to the next town.

It is true that you always will have competitors underprice you - just dont ever get intimidated by it, that all.

:)
Just in case someone misses it...

WHT is not the market. We, the members here, are only a small part of the market. Its like the impression you would get of used car pricing if you spent everyday at dealer's wholesale auctions. We see lots of part-timers, kids, and hobbiests here....but the majority of the market is still corporate hosting providers.

For example, we talk about accounts here all the time for under $10...some as low as $2/month. However, let's look at the other 98% of the market.

Interland-dwarfs us all in size-cheapest plan $16.95. Cheapest plan with MySQL is $42.45.

ValueWeb junk mails me constantly...cheapest plan $19.95.

Verio is huge with business customers....cheapest plan $24.95.

Yahoo/Geocities....cheapest is $19.95.

Don't believe for a second that the industry is built around $3.95 plans. WHT is Discount Dan's Bargain Bin.....fortunately for all of us, it only represents a small percentage of the market.

People who want as cheap as they can get for hosting are probably not the "good" customers to have. Better to build a loyal base with a solid business rather than someone who wants a $10/yr plan to spam through a relay in Hong Kong.