I'm a super small reseller, 11 accounts. Reselling for a large alabanza host. I'm sure my clients don't know I'm a reseller and some of them think I am a big hosting company with 1000+ clients. Month-to-month accounts (but one 6-months prepaid account). I want to stop reselling completely, reason: ridiculous profit and lots of headaches caused by resold clients. I got some legal threats from newbie-clients (some quick cancellations) but I have very clear and verbose standard webhosting industry terms of service (including "We may cancel your account at any time for any reason, no notice and no refund")

I don't know what to say to my resold clients, I can't say "OK closing business, your accounts will be cancelled in 2 weeks, move your site to one of these recommended alabanza hosts"

Any suggestions greatly appreciated


[Edited by John_D on 04-03-2001 at 07:03 PM]

Actually, your best bet for smoothly exiting might be just to sell the accounts. Then tell the clients that your business has been sold, so you don't stick them with having to find a home (of course, some of them might opt out anyway) and you get a little bit of cash for your trouble.

Obviously the most trouble-free approach for your clients would be to sell to another Alabanza-based host.

Are these remaining 11 clients the ones that have made you want to leave this business? If you are like me and alot of other resellers then you must have put a lot of work into setting up and eventually run your business. Do you think being honest with them and telling them (I mean theres only 11 of them) the truth that you are closing down? Or don't you think it would be appropriate if you did?

Stephen

Cancelling your clients in two weeks probably wouldn't be the wisest thing to do. I would go with what JayC said an try to sell the domains. If you are sure you have to close in two weeks, by all means send your users an email now and tell them you are trying to transfer the domains to another host for them, this will save you a heck of a lot of headaches if a client does attempt to sue (terms and conditions don't always protect you, IMHO they are more of a deterrant to attempt to make people not try to sue you). In short, do what you think is best... but don't leave your customers hang till the very end with maybe a few days, if any notice to your closing. I have been in that situation as a client before and it is not very fun scrambling to get your site moved 2 days before a host is closing.

Regards,

Mike

I think whatever you choose and for whatever reasons you are going to be shouted at. Maybe asking your clients if they have a preference to where their domains would like to be hosted as opposed to changing them all them telling them you have and that they have x amount of time to move their files to the new host.

- tell your customers that you will stop your business but that they can stay on your servers until the end of the already paied period.

- stop to resell new accounts and

- provide emailsupport (should not be too hard for 11 existing clients - isn't it?)

May I ask with which company you are.....maybe nomonthlyfees.com?

If you are interested in selling your clients, please contact me via email, and/or post the to the forum.

Thanks - Brian

John drop me a email.

zach@icu-services.net
ICQ: 1417389
or AIM: zmatthai

Zach

John_D, What you should probably do is to carry on any discussion of what the different options would be in this thread. Decide if selling the clients is what you want to do, and if so decide on the kinds of terms you want to do it under. Discussion of that kind of stuff is, I think, appropriate here.

Then if you decide to sell, post in the Advertising forum making that offer. And turn email on, in your profile, so interested parties can contact you (no one will see your email address, they reply in a form and the forum software forwards it to you).

Hey John,

We just went through a similiar situation, drop me a note and I can give you a bit of advice, I can also point you to whom I did business with.

Hi John,
it is good you are taking your customers' wellbeing at heart by deciding to get out of the business in proper manner. Make them aware of your decision, give them time 2-4 wks to consider your the companies you'll refer to them and companies they choose and give them a refund for the unused portion of their web hosting, then finally thank them for using your service. You may contact some reliable Alabanza resellers and see if they can provide your customer discounts for moving over to them. It'll be bes to refer them to another alabanza company so that their hosting experience remains thesame. Good Luck

Y. Bandy
http://www.hosting24-7.com
Reseller Plans Starting at $3.95/mo
No Set-up Fee, Unlimited Bandwidth

In my past experience, you can get another Alabanza host to have the domains transferred to their server if need be. Alabanza will do this if you have the appropriate information, i.e. the password, username, hosting plan, and a few other items of need. (hence, I was a reseller once, and then got my own server and had the clients moved to the new server from my old host by Alabanza)
If you contact your own host, they may even want to buy the customer base from you.


-Alahater

Originally posted by JayC
John_D, What you should probably do is to carry on any discussion of what the different options would be in this thread. Decide if selling the clients is what you want to do, and if so decide on the kinds of terms you want to do it under. Discussion of that kind of stuff is, I think, appropriate here.

Then if you decide to sell, post in the Advertising forum making that offer. And turn email on, in your profile, so interested parties can contact you (no one will see your email address, they reply in a form and the forum software forwards it to you).

Listen to JayC :) Really, first you have to decide what you want to do. I really don't want to see a thread filled with people offering to buy clients in this section.