Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Reseller Hosting : Do resellers lose business to actual hosts?

[QiSoftware]

I am planning to offer reseller hosting for a business plan I am working on. I want my subscribers to know who they are actually hosting with-- however that I plan to take care of any of their software and/or site design issues.

Does anyone see a problem with providing subscribers with this information? This information is easily obtainable anyway-- and I have often wondered why more resellers are not losing business to whoever their hosting provider is. Does this happen?

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[ScottJ]

If your reseller host has an anonymous setup and allows you to use your own name servers, it actually is quite hard for the average internet user to tell who is hosting you.

[QiSoftware]

hmmm... I did not know that. Some people ask about hosting one of my Java tools -- Blogger Calendar or a WordPress blog. I often dig for hosting information and the associated plans to see what they currently have. It often shows up if it looks like a smaller operation.

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[Adam H]

I would expect you would lose customers to your host. depends really who offers the better deal. Also i wouldnt ever use anybody elses nameservers but your own ,
looks abit unprofessional.

[ByteMaster]

Definately use your own naqmeservers. As for the other, I cannot honestly think of anytime that I know of, when we have signed up a new client who came from one of our resellers.

[ldcdc]

I want my subscribers to know who they are actually hosting with-- however that I plan to take care of any of their software and/or site design issues.

If you market it to the right crowd (one that doesn't care much about the hosting part of your service), I guess it can work. I'd becarefull though. Taking care of all the customers' software and design issues can get very labor intensive and thus expensive.

looks abit unprofessional.

When it comes to humans, perception can be everything that matters.

[IH-Rameen]

Well, we see it as if our resellers succeed, we succeed..

One of our resellers openly admits he is a reseller of InnoHosting. I had one customer that wanted to sign up with us instead of the reseller (he obviously found us through the reseller)..

We recommended he go with the reseller instead. I believe that was the best choice to make. The reseller was greatful and has been with us for two years, and on our biggest package.. I saw it as win/win..

But more directly to the point - Yes.

[cartika-andrew]

I would expect you would lose customers to your host. depends really who offers the better deal.

I would be surprised if a reseller lost customers to the root provider. Price has very little to do with this, as resellers inherently cannot compete on price alone. They need some sort of value add. If a reseller was to lose customers it is more then likely a result of failed service - and if this was to happen, I highly doubt the end user would goto the root provider.

[Techark]

Can happen if you are trying to be just another host on the net that attempts to compete on price alone with the big boys.

However if you are a provider that is going to provide design and other value added services to your clients then chances are no you will not. Also ask your host on their policy of taking customers that try and jump to them from you.

We have had a policy of never hosting accounts that are hosted by our resellers we have turned down a few that have tried to jump to us. We have also had a few resellers give up some clients they no longer want to handle and asked us to take them on, for those resellers we give a nice fee for the clients.

[Shock Hosts]

People usually want to go for the bigger company, which in this case is the company hosting you. But if you have a better deal and treat them nicer, and support them well, i'm pretty sure they'd go with you.

[CyberHostPro]

if the reseller service is setup correctly e.g. name servers private, dns private, whois not registered to root company, then the reseller can be assured that the reseller service is white label.

Be sure to check your provider offers this.

[catfished]

I only have a few clients but they are well aware that I'm reselling and they could care less. They are all local so they can phone me and they get personal service that they would not get from any hosting company. So it works for me.

[RajanUrs]

Everyone resells in someway or the other.

Imagine guys at a datecenter sitting in a lab peering through electron microscopes attempting to design and build their own dual core processor chips. LOL

[Orc Webhosting]

Our resellers usually have greatly different plans than ours, so the question never yet arose. They also often target different markets than we do.