Ethics Of Reseller Hosting


Web host reseller is a business that buys server space at a discounted price from a higher-tier Web host and then resells it to its own clients.

Usually a reseller is an independent contractor who buys Web space from a reseller hosting service provider in order to sell that same space, sometimes in smaller increments, to businesses and individuals for a substantial profit. The reseller often enhances the value of Web hosting services by offering special expertise on top of raw Internet presence provision.

Many resellers are similar to affiliates, and are paid based on how many customers they sign up every month. The difference between affiliate programs and cheap reseller hosting services is that resellers continue to be paid each month for every client they sign up, whereas affiliate programs are generally paid a one time commission. The first thing you will want to do if you plan on becoming a reseller is to decide what products or services you want to sell.

Resellers are able to enhance customer care through offering more personable service and by leveraging their human resources to create more in-depth, customized documentation for their clientele. By so doing, resellers have endeared themselves to a large number of small to mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) who purchase Web hosting services.

Resellers that physically maintaining a rack of Internet servers is not required to be successful at providing Web hosting services. Indeed, the fact that they do not maintain infrastructure means that resellers can provide additional value-added services to their clients due to cost-efficiencies. For this reason, the majority of Web host resellers are either Web developers or system integrators who provide e-business solutions to their customers. Typically, their customers want ‘integrated solutions, which include Internet connectivity as a central component. Since their customers contract them for their expertise, Web developers and system integrators are usually granted the responsibility to provide hosting to ensure compatibility with the solutions that are deploying.

Most resellers are second-tier hosting companies, Internet service providers, Web designers, publishers, domain registrars, or individuals who wish to capitalize on the expanding market for enterprise-class Internet services.

The Reselling Model


Resellers face several significant challenges, and not least of these is technical support. While resellers can reasonably expect that they will be given some support by their parent hosting companies, in almost all cases they are responsible for directly fielding the complaints of their own customers.

In other words, if a reseller’s client calls to complain about downtime, it is the reseller who must address the matter – even if ‘addressing’ it just means complaining to the original host. This is a source of frequent complaint among resellers, because they feel that while they cannot directly remedy many of the most common hosting problems (bandwidth, space limitations, downtime, etc.), they are the ones who have to deal with end users whose sites are down, or are loading too slowly.

Ideally, however, resellers should not operate according to the same business model as hosting companies. Although resellers may market themselves as hosts (indeed, some deliberately foster an appearance of being first-generation hosting companies), they are ultimately a sales and services company, not a technology provider. Resellers do not actually own the server space that they are selling, and their two principal responsibilities consist of recruiting new customers and servicing those accounts once they are established.

Resellers are valuable to hosting companies because they are middle men; they concentrate their resources on sales and support, and the hosting company, freed from the need to employ a bank of CSRs, can funnel its resources into technology. If resellers could hand off their sales and support duties to the original host, then there would be no reason for the host to even include them in the business model!

Ultimately, however, this system tends toward greater efficiency, particularly because resellers are often based in countries other than their host. For example, when a British host’s server goes down, the company’s French reseller might receive complaints from each of its twenty clients – but would then lodge a single complaint with the hosting company.

Is Your Web Host A Secret Reseller?


Web hosting resellers have been around for almost as long as the Web hosting business itself. In the beginning, Web hosting companies who had made large capital investments in servers and infrastructure began recruiting third-party companies as a type of commissioned sales force to help them recoup their investment faster. These third-party companies were given incentives to ‘resell’ hosting services with volume discounts, advanced technical support and private labeling that made the primary host completely transparent to the reseller’s customers. In general, the more hosting customers that a reseller can deliver for the primary host, the greater the discount the reseller receives and the more money they can make marking up the hosting service to end users. Interestingly enough, many of today’s large primary hosting companies actually began as resellers and later bought their own servers and added support staff by reinvesting their profits. View reliable web hosts under $10.

Today, there are thousands of resellers operating under their own brand names who would prefer that their hosting customers never know they are really reselling another company’s hosting services. Should you be concerned with whether your hosting company is a reseller? The answer is yes and no. Resellers can sometimes offer you more attentive and personalized support because they don’t have as many customers to deal with as the primary hosting company they are reselling for. Resellers also can offer value-added benefits to their customers by including other services in their hosting packages such as search engine promotion, Web design, database management and other Web-based applications. And even though resellers are acting as middlemen, their hosting packages may be priced as low as, or even lower, than the primary host’s retail hosting packages depending on the volume discount they receive and the margin they need.

The majority of resellers are legitimate businesses offering a good value to their hosting customers through an established and reliable primary hosting company. But just because the primary hosting company is reputable and trustworthy doesn’t automatically mean all of their resellers are. If for any reason a reseller can’t pay or chooses not to pay their hosting bills, they can be shutdown by their primary host with no warning to you. It’s also highly unlikely that you would have any recourse with the primary host (if you can even find out who they are) since your hosting contract is with the reseller. Resellers don’t have any real capital investment in equipment and infrastructure so it’s very easy for them to go out of business for any reason. They’ll just resurface tomorrow under a different name and start reselling hosting for another hosting company — leaving their existing customers with a pile of headaches and nobody to turn to for help.

So how do you know if you are dealing with a primary hosting company or a reseller? The first rule of thumb is to ask! A reputable reseller will most likely be honest and even tell you who their primary hosting company is. If the reseller is truly offering value for their hosting customers, their hosting packages should hold up even to direct comparisons with the primary host’s retail packages. But, if a reseller really doesn’t want anyone to know they are a reseller, it can be hard to know for sure. You could ask to visit their data center in person and see what they say. You can also try domain lookups, running trace routes or go into hosting forums for info on them.

The bottom line is that you need to very inquisitive and careful when choosing a reseller for a hosting company, just as you should with any new supplier with whom you are contemplating a contractual relationship. Regardless of whether your host is a reseller or not, the most important thing is that you reliably get the Web services you need for a fair market price. Make sure your host’s systems are redundant to avoid problems during peak periods and have uninterrupted power supplies in case of a power failure. Find out if their Internet connections offer the speed and bandwidth you need. And make absolutely sure that all of your data is backed up daily so if you ever have a problem, you can get up and running quickly with another hosting provider.

Application Service Providers and Hosting


The application service provider (CPWebHosting – a Reseller Hosting Company) has important features that can be very beneficial for you the number of applications provided through the ASP model is growing. Accordingly, there is a growing business of companies developing software for the ASP marketplace.

Flexibility is very important in this business so as remotely-hosted applications (CPWebHosting – a Reseller Hosting Company) can provide cost-effective access for businesses to unique software, many of the applications are designed to be of occasional use in terms of use. Others are geared towards using group connectivity provided by through the Internet to provide an application that is flexible.

There is a broad advantages of application service provider (CPWebHosting – a Reseller Hosting Company) one of them a major advantage for businesses in seeking ASP services is that they provide an opportunity to reduce costs and increase efficiencies. Companies can have access to a wider-range of software products with the possibility of paying less than an outright purchase through usage charges.

Reseller Hosting: The Good and The Bad!


Reseller web hosting can be a great way to earn some extra money on the side for your business or even a full time job once you get into it. Though this can be a great way to do business, it can come with some UN-foreseen downsides, headaches and a whole lot more. Not to say that you can’t be successful at it, but you must first take the steps to assure that down the road it doesn’t ruin your business.

An important part when dealing with reseller hosting is that some of the control has been taking out of your hands. This is important because you have to trust in the company you are doing business with and this limits to some things you can do.

How much uptime and downtime you have is really not for you to decide, as you are not the one looking over the server. The company you are going through may not be as professional as you and they figure what is a few hours of waiting to get your site up, Right? Wrong! The worse thing I have seen is sites going down and when you go to that company’s website that you do business with, all you think is ‘oh my, their site is down too and I can’t get in touch with them’. This can cause allot of headaches for your and your clients; it can even cost your business.

The best thing to do before going with a hosting company is to get a list of reference sites if you can, to see if they go down. Also watch the company’s site you are planning to go with and see if it ever goes down. If so, how quick does it come back up? Another great thing to do is ask around, if the company has good or bad service, then there will be people out there to comment on this, trust me. Also don’t be afraid to email those people who had a problem with that hosting company and ask them what exactly happened.

Also when dealing with a company, make sure they offer a good list of services and features that you can offer to your clients. Check with them to see how flexible they are with different scenarios as well as adding on new features. Remember a good company with go the extra mile to show you that they can be trusted.

Qualities of a Good Reseller Hosting Company


Reseller web hosting can be a great way to earn some extra money on the side for your business or even a full time job once you get into it.
The most important thing while doing a reseller business is that you must trust the company you are working with and you must give some controls of it to them.It is very important.
Always choose that company whose website does not suffer from downtime so that they in turn not let your website down and in case if it is so then they can quickly heal your web traffic.

The best thing to do before going with a hosting company is to get a list of reference sites if you can, to see if they go down. Also watch the company’s site you are planning to go with and see if it ever goes down. If so, how quick does it come back up? Another great thing to do is ask around, if the company has good or bad service, then there will be people out there to comment on this, trust me. Also don’t be afraid to email those people who had a problem with that hosting company and ask them what exactly happened.

Also when dealing with a company, make sure they offer a good list of services and features that you can offer to your clients. Check with them to see how flexible they are with different scenarios as well as adding on new features. Remember a good company with go the extra mile to show you that they can be trusted.

What is Reseller Hosting?


The term Reseller according to the dictionary means to sell again i.e. to sell a product or service to the public or to an end user, especially as an authorized dealer, while making sure that you make a profit on the sale.

Reseller Hosting
Reseller hosting is no different either, a reseller buys a Web hosting package from a hosting company and tries to sell it independently. The profit for the reseller lies in either the discount or in the commission s/he gets from selling an account.
You can get some money by earning commissions from a hosting company. This happens when you refer potential customers to the hosting company. If the customer signs up with the company then you earn a small recurring commission until the customer uses the services.
Most web hosting companies try to outsource their services to resellers as it helps them to extend their business reach without the cost of marketing and sales and also helps them to concentrate on the business side of things.

What can be resold?
As a reseller you can decide what kinds of services you can sell. You can provide shared, dedicated or co-location web hosting or merchant accounts, store fronts etc.
If you go with hosting then it might be useful to offer some other hosting related services like domain names, search engines etc.
Of course, if you have problems selling these value added services in the beginning then you can sell them later.

The cost and resources involved
If you just plan to earn commission by referring people to the hosting company by using the Internet, then you do not have to put up a lot of money, all you need is an Internet ready PC and an Internet connection.
It is advisable to start small if you are very new to the concept of web hosting and reselling. Then you can expand as you go on and start getting more and more customers in which case offering domain registration is also a very good way to make profits.

Tips for marketing yourself
If you are starting out on a small scale then visiting message boards and posting your services there is a good idea. A lot of potential clientele with relatively small hosting needs also frequent message boards and outline their desired services.
Having contests is a great idea for bringing awareness and interest about your services.
Online ad campaigns, signatures, and text links are very helpful techniques.
Once you have gotten a bigger budget then you can go for Google ad words or PPC search engines.

The best strategy is to try out various combinations of these approaches and work out the best one for your needs.

What is Reseller Hosting?


The term Reseller according to the dictionary means to sell again i.e. to sell a product or service to the public or to an end user, especially as an authorized dealer, while making sure that you make a profit on the sale.

Reseller Hosting
Reseller hosting is no different either, a reseller buys a Web hosting package from a hosting company and tries to sell it independently. The profit for the reseller lies in either the discount or in the commission s/he gets from selling an account.
You can get some money by earning commissions from a hosting company. This happens when you refer potential customers to the hosting company. If the customer signs up with the company then you earn a small recurring commission until the customer uses the services.
Most web hosting companies try to outsource their services to resellers as it helps them to extend their business reach without the cost of marketing and sales and also helps them to concentrate on the business side of things.

What can be resold?
As a reseller you can decide what kinds of services you can sell. You can provide shared, dedicated or co-location web hosting or merchant accounts, store fronts etc.
If you go with hosting then it might be useful to offer some other hosting related services like domain names, search engines etc.
Of course, if you have problems selling these value added services in the beginning then you can sell them later.

The cost and resources involved
If you just plan to earn commission by referring people to the hosting company by using the Internet, then you do not have to put up a lot of money, all you need is an Internet ready PC and an Internet connection.
It is advisable to start small if you are very new to the concept of web hosting and reselling. Then you can expand as you go on and start getting more and more customers in which case offering domain registration is also a very good way to make profits.

Tips for marketing yourself
If you are starting out on a small scale then visiting message boards and posting your services there is a good idea. A lot of potential clientele with relatively small hosting needs also frequent message boards and outline their desired services.
Having contests is a great idea for bringing awareness and interest about your services.
Online ad campaigns, signatures, and text links are very helpful techniques.
Once you have gotten a bigger budget then you can go for Google ad words or PPC search engines.

The best strategy is to try out various combinations of these approaches and work out the best one for your needs.