How well do you think a reseller package will sell if I offer 60.0 GB of Disk Space
600 GB of Monthly Bandwidth with unlimited account setups for only $9. Do you think this will sell very well, or do you think many people will look past it due to "overselling?" The idea is to sell the server until about 25%-50% is in use. Any ideas or comments will be appreciated.

It's risky. Yes you may get many signups but when each reseller starts overselling as well you could end up with thousands of accounts on the server, which is likely to cause the server to become slower resulting in numerous complaints.

Yes you could terminate a reseller for using "Excessive system resources", but that would only get you bad publicity when they post in forums like these complaining.

In my honest opinion it would be better to sell resonable plans, that would not run the risk of overloaing your server

I know adding a HD is not a big issue .. but if your 2-3 users actually uses the bandwidth then what you will going too doo .. plus cpu, ram resources ..

Ask yourself this> Why sell something you can't really offer?

In the end, you're the one that's going to lose.

Ask yourself this> Why sell something you can't really offer?

In the end, you're the one that's going to lose.

Agreed. Be honest with your clients. They will appreciate it. :)

It depends: If the host oversells, No. If the doesn't oversell, or oversells only slightly, then yes, its ok for resellers to be able to oversell.

Its bad when both are doing it.

If you offer a plan like that you will get lots of newbies signing up. Since your server is only half full and functioning well they will be singing your praises. Life is going to be good, and everyone will be congratulating you on your success.

Then, after a few months, they will begin utilizing more and more resources because resellers rarely stop growing. There will come a point when your servers begin to scream for mercy, and so will your resellers.

You'll wish you had more servers so you could spread your resellers out a little more, but because your price is so low you won't be able to afford any. You'll also be swamped with support tickets because of all the problems overloaded servers tend to have.

Sorry I can't paint a more rosy picture. I'm looking at all the other hosts who've tried the same thing you are about to try. Maybe you can make it work. If you try, you are one brave soul. Best of luck to you. :)

I know alot of people think about doing this but the truth is you shouldn't. I like to treat my clients to what they pay for and build QUALITY sales. Your clients will appreciate it when you take extra good care of them because its not always about the specs but the support and service.

Nothing wrong with overselling. You control it and do it properly, have the financial ability and capability to rapidly deploy more systems then there is nothing wrong with it and probably one of the most profitable techniques you will come across.

Agreed, responsible overselling can reduce overhead with no service degradation.

I don't think the OP is merely overselling, however. 60 Gigs, at this point in time is a lot for only $9 or $10, and the OP will get many resellers who use all of it. History has shown that there is no way to do this responsibly long-term.

I can't think of a single mainstream host who has offered packages like this for more than a few years without either going under or putting clauses in their TOS which result in lots of angry ex-customers and a bad reputation for the host.

Even if a host could, somehow, manage to make long-term profit offering such a package, the quality of service wouldn't be good: slow servers, overwhelmed support department, etc. This is the sort of thing that makes the industry look bad.

No i think it a good thing to ovwer sell, more sell you make more profit you generate £££..

There are two kinds of overselling. There is the kind where you use space efficiently. I agree there is nothing wrong with that, as it does generate more profit, and you can share those savings with your customers, and be more competitive.

Then there is the kind of overselling that is nothing but a cheap marketing gimic. That type of overselling is very risky, and almost always ends badly.

Then there is the kind of overselling that is nothing but a cheap marketing gimic. That type of overselling is very risky, and almost always ends badly.That's a bit out of the scope of the OP's question. As for overselling as a marketing gimmick, true, it can be that. However, it doesn't have to result in chronic server overloading. All that the host must do is suspend/terminate users/sites that bog down the server, even if that means no one can use the advertised figures. The ones who use little may enjoy decent service. I'm not saying this is right, but it still amazes me that some hosts apparently willingly choose to overload their servers.

Agreed, somehow these topics tend to sway off course a little, but I would still say that when a host offers 300 gigs of space, for example, that it is a marketing gimic 99.9% of the time. 60 gigs for $9 is possible to offer, so I'm not saying its definitely a marketing gimic for sure, but in answer to OP's question, yes, a lot of people will see it that way. It all depends on the type of customer he wants to attract.

i think that its good

Good
Don´t worry about overselling..

It seems to me that trying to market yourself based on overselling is short sighted and unlikely to result in attracting many quality customers.

You need to focus on your Unique Selling Proposition. What do you offer that other web hosts don't? What niche do you serve that other web hosts / resellers don't? Answering this will go further towards attracting customers than offering all the storage and bandwidth in the world.

I believe we should coin the new phrase: ResourceSelling and use it in place of Overselling since often times this word is miss quoted amongst providers to try and persuade customers to not go with a particular host.

The truth is - if a provider sells based upon the available resources they have available to the client(s) then it is not overselling - as long as they can successfully meet the needs of that client.

If you are making less than what it cost to provide such resources and can't afford to make changes as they are needed, then yes, you can say that is overselling because you have oversold what you can successfully provide the customer.

Just my two cents.

I agree, on one hand, that a new phrase is needed, since responsible overselling is very different from massive overselling, but there is one problem.

Not all hosts are honest. Once you split a term like "overselling" into a postive term and negative term, all hosts will latch onto the positive term, whether it is true or not. Some hosts will continue to offer huge amounts, and claim that they are not overselling.

I don't think its an issue of whether or not they can provide it. A lot of responsible oversellers are more than capable of selling more. I could begin offering 4 times what I am offering now, be able to back that up for every single customer, and technically be "resource selling." Another host might be able to offer 10 times as much. But responsible hosts choose not to offer more, even though they could, because they want to maintain a higher quality product.

There is no definite line between responsible overselling and massive overselling. It is a matter of opinion. We can only tell the difference when someone WAY overshoots it.

In short, I think that creating a new term would help dishonest hosts, and put the honest ones at yet another disadvantage.