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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2006
    Location
    Detroit, MI
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    [wanted] What do resellers want?

    Hey guys,

    I am driving my team to put a reseller program in place. I have done some searching on the forum and see a lot of disparate features that resellers are looking for. I would like some input from the community in order to create a solid set of features for our resellers.

    What kind of things would make a reselling package attractive? (features, tools, etc.)


    Regards,

  2. #2
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Location
    The Kingdom of LLAMEDOS
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    2,881
    Hi,
    thats brave, there's a lot out there, most people in this forum have trouble making a choice, we all have different priorities & requirements.
    You (IMHO) need to decide your market place (newbies,basic,top end or whatever). Create a USP (unique selling point), then off you go...........
    Just need to be the best in your 'sector', honest, & 10 % or more better than the compitition.
    If you offer 1 month free test run, that would go down well.... I'm 9 days into a new account elsewhere & not even got started properley yet.
    Good Luck

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jul 2006
    Location
    Detroit, MI
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    Quote Originally Posted by Brian2006
    Hi,
    thats brave, there's a lot out there, most people in this forum have trouble making a choice, we all have different priorities & requirements.
    You (IMHO) need to decide your market place (newbies,basic,top end or whatever). Create a USP (unique selling point), then off you go...........
    Just need to be the best in your 'sector', honest, & 10 % or more better than the compitition.
    If you offer 1 month free test run, that would go down well.... I'm 9 days into a new account elsewhere & not even got started properley yet.
    Good Luck
    Brain,

    Thanks for taking your time to reply.

    Great point about focusing on a sector, and we already have that defined: businesses. We want to focus on doing what we do well and allow our reslellers to focus on what they do, while everyone makes a profit.

    What we do well is provide a reliable and performant global infrastrucutre. My hope is that our resellers can stop worrying about reliability and performance from their past experiences with other companies and focus on selling the pacakges _they_ want at the prices they choose.



    I would still like some feedback on what pricing and features you guys would like to see. I will be up front with you: we are not the least expensive host and do not do budget hosting, but we want to find price-points that are profitable for us and the reseller, while maintaining our standards of solid service and support.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    May 2006
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    The Kingdom of LLAMEDOS
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    2,881
    Your welcome
    are you US based ? I'm a bit busy but will (aim to) PM some comments if you do not mind - later. (my sector is 'SMEs).
    ta
    Brian

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jul 2006
    Location
    Detroit, MI
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    Quote Originally Posted by Brian2006
    Your welcome
    are you US based ? I'm a bit busy but will (aim to) PM some comments if you do not mind - later. (my sector is 'SMEs).
    ta
    Brian

    Our offices are US-based, but we have dedicated servers in several locations around the globe. We are also in the process of creating an off-shore entity to handle specific types of foreign transactions.

    Comments are always appreciated.



    Regards,

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    PA
    Posts
    62
    I will say what i personally look for.

    1. Performance - must not be slow
    2. Owning Datacenter (and this generally eliminates a lot of resellers)
    3. Space/BW/Price - must be fairly competitive and i do pay more since i know my host owns the datacenter.
    4. Features - Spam/Antivirus/Control Panel
    5. Support - Basically letting me know what is going on when something breaks. (Especially when i have no control over the situation)

    Features - i have seen but not available where i want.
    - Email hosted on Seperate Server.(With more space allocated seperatly from web. Could be an interesting play)
    - Higher End Backend - Oracle/MSSQL/ - not just mysql.

    Those are my 2cents.

    Xau

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by utropicmedia-karl
    Brain,

    What we do well is provide a reliable and performant global infrastrucutre. My hope is that our resellers can stop worrying about reliability and performance from their past experiences with other companies and focus on selling the pacakges _they_ want at the prices they choose.
    If you can really come up with something like that, I will be your first customer
    Well, I think all resellers are looking for performance & reliability from the server perspective & efficient, fast support along with reasonable price.

    You must providing few extra features as well like
    Domain reseller package
    Billing software
    & perhaps Support software.
    Find solution to every problem ---> Google.com

  8. #8
    Join Date
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    Detroit, MI
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fastian
    If you can really come up with something like that, I will be your first customer
    Well, I think all resellers are looking for performance & reliability from the server perspective & efficient, fast support along with reasonable price.

    You must providing few extra features as well like
    Domain reseller package
    Billing software
    & perhaps Support software.

    Thanks for the reply Fastian.

    After reading your reply I have a new question: if we were to provide all the things you listed, what value-add does a reseller provide then? Basically you are asking the server owners to do everything needed to run a business - why would they bother with resellers then?

    I have always seen hosting as a division of responsabilities. It doesn't make sense for one oranization to run everything front-to-back(jack of all trades, master of none!), so Network providers lease bandwidth to datacenters, datacenters provide services for hosts, hosts provide support for resellers, etc. If one entity runs everything, does that not reduce their effectiveness, and also limit their flexability?

    Our approach is shaping up to be this: we will provide a reliable and performant infrastrucutre, our resellers can then brand, provide whatever services, packages and levels of support, etc. they want to their clients. I am interested in hearing the feedback on this.

    Ultimately we want to empower our resellers to be their own company: and not have to worry about the backend, just focus on their clients and what services they want to provide. I am struggling to see what providing helpdesk software, billing software, etc. will do for enabling them to make their own decisions.

  9. #9
    After reading your reply I have a new question: if we were to provide all the things you listed, what value-add does a reseller provide then? Basically you are asking the server owners to do everything needed to run a business - why would they bother with resellers then?
    In my opinion, a hosting reseller solution is simply a platform to offer resellers multiple revenue streams and multiple solution platforms.

    I simply cannot see how you would provide a reseller solution without offering your customers everything required to run their business (ie heldesk, billing, and a wide variety of solutions)

    The value add of a reseller becomes personal communication with their niche, professional services ontop of the hosting services (development, design, consultation, etc) - items like integrated billing, helpdesk solutions, registrars, etc are simply tools which accomodate a reseller in their business of adding value to your hosting services

    2. Owning Datacenter (and this generally eliminates a lot of resellers)
    This is an interesting one, as a Data Center resells Bandwidth, Power, etc - right?

    Personally, most true "Data Centers" are in the data center business and would not sell shared reseller accounts. They will sell servers, or lease space to providers as colocation space - however, rarely will you see a "true" data center provide reseller hosting services. Companies should always focus on their core competencies - and I would be wary of any Data Center providing shared reseller hosting accounts - just as I would be wary of a shared hosting provider trying to operate their own Data Center.

    It makes much more sense to lease space from an established, top of the line facility, vs trying to build your own DC on a limited budget.

    By this train of thought, would you only do business with companies that own their own buildings? if a company leases office space, would that be an indication to avoid them?
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