Hello,
I am just starting a hosting company and I am a reseller of another.

What is the best way to promote/advertise my company to get sales and that is not expensive. Is advertising in web hosting directories effective? And if so, what method(banner impressions or static buttons)?

Right now, I'm using paypal for users to pay for the hosting plans. Is this method okay to use and will it turn clients away if I use PayPal.
And are there any other cc processing companies that are better and still low cost.

Thanks,
Adam

Correct me if I'm wrong, but does paypal automatically bill every month? I know it didn't but...

For paypal type payment, many use http://www.instabill.com or http://www.revecom.com (but I believe the fees with paypal are less).

Paypal is a no no for hosting companies!

Having done both Instabill and Revecom, I prefer Revecom. It's a few bucks up front, but the extra features in the Merchant Control Panel are worth it. Support is timely and very accomodating.

I would use Revecom. It's pretty nice and Paypal is just a plain pain the the butt.

Revecom is $79.00 off the bat and then charge so much per Credit card order and so much per online check order.

Originally posted by Newbie
I would use Revecom. It's pretty nice and Paypal is just a plain pain the the butt.

Revecom is $79.00 off the bat and then charge so much per Credit card order and so much per online check order.

how about charge.com? Their prices seem to be good. Also, I am an ENOM reseller. What kind of cc processing will integrate easily with ENOM?

cheer,
:beer:

Originally posted by Newbie
I would use Revecom. It's pretty nice and Paypal is just a plain pain the the butt.

Revecom is $79.00 off the bat and then charge so much per Credit card order and so much per online check order.

erggg.... so why do use revecom if you knwo they charge so much per order?

cheers,
:beer:

Originally posted by dektong
.... so why do use revecom if you knwo they charge so much per order?...

Dektong,

Personally, I'm willing to use Revecom although they charge so much per order. Because remember, they have no monthly fees.
And it's good for a new company (resellers??) which only have a few orders per month.

<<ADMIN NOTE: Fixed the boldness :)>>



[Edited by Chicken on 02-13-2001 at 09:09 AM]

Hey Mr Admin,

Why my previous reply got bold letter?

Originally posted by Newbie
Revecom is $79.00 off the bat and then charge so much per Credit card order and so much per online check order.

Um, that's for tangible goods. Look at http://www.revecom.com/services/index.htm for clarification.

Sorry wrong on Set-up fee was think of the other.

http://Revecom.com

Visa,MC,Discover,AmerX,JCB 3.95%
online Check 4%
Auth Fee: $1.00
Setup: $49.00
Phone orders additional $2.00

5% of total sales will be withheld for 90 days to cover chargebacks or refund requests

Secure Payment Server
Unlimited Monthly Volume
Unlimited Products
Recurring Billing
Advanced Management Systems
Plug'n'Play Design
24/7 Support
No Monthly Fee
30-Day Money Back Guarantee

There is just too many features in this thing and it's well worth my money for it. Think of it as a control panel for webhosting, It's pack and it's loaded and it has your own forums, reporting, no need for a SSL, Link generation for each item to place on your pages.

As for charge.com. That's a Actual Merchant account.

You pay $10.00 per month for a statement
1.65% for the transaction + .20
$395.00 for software
$195 for a terminal
$15.00p/Month for a gateway
You'll need to get a SSL $99.00 to 300+

*Very high risk companies may require higher points and different fees.

I believe hosting is a High Risk business so guess what!!

This was brought up earlier in a thread 6 pages long http://webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=2095

I just signed up with Revecom yesterday for my hosting company website I really like the features and the ease of use.

I am also thinking of going with them for the other service too.. For tangable products.

I run another website about exploring Nova Scotia (for about 2 years now) and I want to start selling the photos on the website in print & framed versions. So I'm thinking on using their service for this as well.

I just don't like the fact that there is a monthly fee on the other plan..

-Jeremy

At the beginning of this month I also signed up with Revecom, just to see how their service is.
After having processed a few orders, it's working great, but my only drawback that keeps me from continuing is that they don't have an API.

It's important that I can customize my order forms, have a virtual terminal for manual charges, and batch uploads.

That is something authorize.net and signio.com do have. (I used planetpayment.com, int.version of authorize.net, but they have stopped paying me for no reason, and what good is a payment processor when they don't pay you!?!)

I'm another one trying to set up a reseller's account. I saw the above post that paypal is a no no. What's up? This is the first place I've heard that...

Thanks in advance
Jeff

Jeff,

Unless PayPal has changed recently it's a no-no as it doesn't allow recurring charges. As a webhost you'll want that, as it'll charge customers once a month (or every 3,6 or 12 months) without you having to manually get them to sign up again.

Getting their credit card number from them and entering it yourself is a BIG No No. By big I mean it's jail time if you do it unless you have a full merchant account.

The reason (myself included) are promoting Revecom lately is it's ease of use Vs cost. It's a more fully featured service than Instabill etc, but the 10% they take is lower, with a one time set up fee of $49 for stuff like hosting (I think the full details are above).

Also unless Paypal have changed things, it's just not a very professional 'feeling' system for clients. Once they start to pay a monthly fee they don't really want to have to do anything to maintain it afterwards.

Greg Moore

We have been using Revecom for a short period of time and are very happy with the results.

We cannot customize it 100%, but it does do the job for us!

Boksoft, now I might be wrong (how come so many of my posts start out this way?), but you might want to contact reve about that API because I know someone who was looking to do something (I can't remember what), and they needed to seemlessly integrate someting and I *thought* they could integrate it.

Ok, ignore the whole top part of this post and just ask them (what I should have said). :)

Actually I'm pretty sure we're stuck with the default. I asked them a while ago if I could alter the order form, though that was via html templates etc. I got an email back saying the system wouldn't support custom forms.

I think it's much the same reason they don't do custom billing names anymore. When they were a lot smaller they did, but now they are a bigger firm they don't have the time to customize accounts. I may be wrong there of course :) It's not a bad thing - they may just be sticking to priorities. I'd rather good support than nifty order forms. Of course the default form (by sheer accident) happens to suit akashik.net quite ok.

If anyone finds a way to change it though I'd love to hear about it myself.

Greg Moore

Looks like there is a way to modify their order form, follow these steps:
1) go to your order page
2) select credit card and click continue
3) copy the source code of the page
4) open your html editor
5) paste source code
6) replace

<form method="POST" action="quickcharge.asp" id="form1" name="form1" LANGUAGE="javascript">

with

<form method="POST" action="https://secure.paysystems1.com/cgi-v310/payment/quickcharge.asp" id="form1" name="form1" LANGUAGE="javascript">

7) edit the look of the page
8) save
9) try ordering something using your new form.

I've been looking at Revecom and I have a question for y'all who are with them now:
Can I pass a price to their order page, or do I have to set up each individual price option/package and then script my shopping cart to sort all of that out and give the customer the correct link to match up to the "product id" over at Revecom?

This might be confusing, let me elaborate if I've lost you.
Say a customer chooses my hosting service, and then a dedicated IP (which is a bit extra).
With PayPal, I can simply present a link saying something like paypal.com?price=$xx.xx
With ClickBank, I have to present a *specific* link for a product that I've already set up in ClickBank's control panel that is that particular hosting package with a dedicated ip, something like:
clickbank.com?prodid=10

The PayPal way is what I'm looking for. The ClickBank way is a true PAIN, especially if you offer a lot of options and let customers choose rather than slamming them into a pre-made package.

I hope this is coherent. I've been up about 24hrs at this point. :)

Also, for the person who was looking at a 3rd party solution for tangible products, check out ProPay.Com or Verza.Com. Both are free and both have different good aspects to them. You might want to use them interchangeably for different purposes.

Raven

They use the latter. The link to Revecom is just to the product ID. The price is stored locally there. You set them up individually (which is easy enough - I have over 30 set up).

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong here but passing a price from your site to them could be a little risky. If I were to get that same link ?price=1000 and change it to ?price=100 then I'd be getting something for quite a discount. If it could be done, you'd probably notice that straight away, but maybe not... there's not much some people won't do to stiff others these days *sigh*

Greg Moore

Hello
I have been reading over this thread for the past day or so and I just wanted to say that your payment system is probably the most important part of your business.

If its not integrated with your site it can lead to people not completing the buying process.
Monitor the stats for the number of people who go to the order page compared to the number who submit the form.
I am always working to narrow that gap.

I use Worldpay.com which is not ideal, but it does integrate well and the charges are low (5% approx plus $170 per year).
The monthly billing is also very efficient.

However, we still use Instabill as an option for Discover Card and Amex, that we don't have a merchant account for and I have to say that their catalogue system is very good and integrates well with the look of the site.

Gordon

Originally posted by Raven
The ClickBank way is a true PAIN, especially if you offer a lot of options and let customers choose rather than slamming them into a pre-made package.

Raven, depending on how you set it up, this is what a shopping cart is used for. Yes, it gets a bit tricky if you are charging them for one-time things and monthly things in combination, but I'm not sure it can't be done with these places. If it is set up well enough, it should work OK for the most part.

Dektong:

Enom has release credit card processing in new API. They will do the processing for you for $.95 and 3%. I'm using that, and it's great.

Thanks,
Brandon

Maybe Brandon has had better luck with customer support from them, but I've sent them emails (3 different times, to 5 different addresses), and not received a reply back. While I'd like to use them and set this up for my clients at least, how many chances should I have to give a company to give them business?

In my honest opinion, they are a piss poor excuse for a regisistrar and I've not encountered one with worse support.

I've talked to a few people about them and their experiences have been similar.