Is there anything wrong with selling as reseller?

B

BlackStorm

New member
I have seen a lot of people asking about if hosts are resellers and if saying they wouldnt host with a certain company because they are resellers, but I dont see anything wrong with this.

What is wrong with hosting with a reseller?
A reseller can offer just as good support as getting direct, maybe even better as they have less people to look after.
Their prices can be just as good, if not better, than from buying direct.

There are a few things which i think are in favor of buying from a reseller but Im not sure why so many people say they wouldnt go with someone because they are a reseller.

Just wanted to know what people think with another point of view or even if you think the same as me, why do you think people dont want to host with a reseller?

is it because the reseller might not last?Incase they are just looking to make money quickly?
A host with a dedicated server can do just the same yet i have seen a lot would prefer to host with a host owning a ded server rather than one with a reseller account.

maybe its because they think someone with a ded server has more experience...Just trying to think of various reasons :)
 
I think it is more "a reseller can drop their buisness at anytime" type of thing. As we know people are offering accounts dirt cheap. I have seen 5 gig space reseller accounts for like 10 bucks a month. That is much less to invest then in a dedicated server.

At least when you know your host controls the server you know they have invested some money and time into it and aren't as likely to jump ship as a reseller. Also when a problem with the server comes up, you contact your reselling host, who then has to contact the server host. Get rid of the middleman and go with someone that has root access already. Or do what I did, get rid of everyone and get your own servers :)
 
Companies with only reseller accounts are far more likely to pack up and leave on you than a hosting company with 1 or more dedicated servers. The reason for this is often the company on the reseller account often is new to the webhosting world, and they try to offer dirt cheap prices which makes them a few cents per GB.

This is how companies on reselling accounts get a bad reputation.
 

This is how companies on reselling accounts get a bad reputation.
Click to expand...

I think its also how they give resellers a bad reputation.
Everyone has to start somewhere and some start with a reseller, some with a dedicated server but there are a lot of people signing up for very small resellers accounts as Mark said and offering very cheap hosting then getting some money and closing up.

I think that once you open any business you cant close it, its a full time job and you have to have a lot of time to dedicate to it and this is something to think about if you are considering starting in the hosting business.
 
I agree, you should stick with the hosting company as long as you possibly can.

You can physically close a company, but you should not have to or you should not be able to unless you absolutley had to.
 
problem i see with reselling is when it comes time to get your own dedicated server, transfering the accounts from the reseller account to your dedicated is time consuming, and when your transfering accounts from 1 server to another, there are always problems with databases and stuff... if you are serious about hosting, invest the little bit of extra money and get your own server and invest the time to learn how to use it.

As a host I love my reseller clients. Whenever one of them decides to stop hosting, they dump all their customers on me and I offer them my rates to stay on the server and I end up making 3-5 times the amount the reseller was paying me... but on the other hand, some of my best customers are resellers as well...
 
I don't see why people knock reselling companies, because when you think about it, I bet you would make more money from selling reseller accounts than regular hosting accounts.

At least this is what I personally found.
 
Are you sure?
If you sold the accounts as seperate accounts you would make a lot more for the space, bandwidth etc. that your selling.

Resellers buy it for less than someone buying one account for one site.
You would probably make the moeny quicker if you were doing reseller accounts though
 
you sell 3 reseller accounts you make more money then if you sold 3 shared accounts.... but that is only initial profit... remember 3 reseller accounts take up an entire server, 3 shared accounts doesnt... if you did the math, you would have to sell more shared accounts, but you could in the end fit more clients (more money) onto each server.


That is why I have servers that are dedicated to regular hosting and servers that are dedicated to resellers... never mix the two..
 
You seem to have taken a bit of time preparing for everything if not you've had a good plan.. good to see and keep up the good work :)
 
yeah it would take longer to fill up a server selling the accounts seperate than selling reseller accounts.

If you sell reseller accounts you can make your profit quicker, although it wont be as much as selling the individual accounts, just like Mark said again....

The companies doing reseller only accounts seem to be doing pretty well at the minute because of so many buying reseller accounts.
I think they must make a complete fortune too from resellers closing and then they get the resellers accounts or else maybe refer them on, Im sure some of these companies have some kind of plan for accounts of resellers that have gone bust.
 
I wouldnt say the main reason people dont buy from Resellers is because they have a reputation of going out of business. Everywhere you look hosting companies drop out of business because the market is so large.

You see one host offering 50MB - 5GIGs bandwidth for $1.50 per month and then another one offering it for $7.95. Either way you look at it PRICE doesnt have the final say in whether you stay in business. The first person might get a ton of people signing up sinceit is so cheap..... the other might get a lot of sign up because they think with the $7.95 they invest in hosting they will get good service.
Or it may just turn out that neither get business.... they just arent in the right place at the right time.

The reality comes down to not price but service. The idea of CAN THIS COMPANY HELP ME WHEN I NEED IT, is very comforting to web users. Most people dont care about price that much.... they care about beeing taken care of.

I think the downfall to resellers isnt the pricing schemes you see, but the lack of support. If you purchased hosting from a reseller, you have to go through 2 companies to get your support issues resolved... which equals twice the amount of wait time. Thats not something most people like the think about when choosing a host.

The other bad thing about resellers in my mind is the fact that most of them are 14-18 year olds that just dont have the right mind set for running a business. They are stuck in school from 7am-4pm and just want some spending money for car Gas or going out with some friends. When you see larger companies with their own servers/networks you realize they have the money/resources/time to develope their network, so in return they should have the time to help me.

(Im not knocking 14-18 yr old business people here. Its just a known fact that most of todays resellers are "young adults".)
 
Wow, I'm in this category of "young adults" and yes, it is true, I am usually stuck at school from 8am-3pm where I can not help, but thankfully, this is where my partner comes in, yes he works, but he works with computers and is always watching our support channels as well as emails.
 
Well it really depends on what the local people think. Some people including me think that resellers are normally run by kids and also their pricing is very low just for competition but they do make sure that their pricing will end up balancing the $$$ they pay for their reseller plan. Secondly when it comes to support the reseller wouldn't really know anything about hosting unless he has knowledge about it but most of the cases they have to forward the support ticket to their provider who will reply back to them and the reseller simply copies and pastes the response which could take more than 24 hours :)
 
<!--QuoteBegin-GordyMac+Oct 15 2003, 06:52 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (GordyMac @ Oct 15 2003, 06:52 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I don't see why people knock reselling companies, because when you think about it, I bet you would make more money from selling reseller accounts than regular hosting accounts.

At least this is what I personally found. [/b][/quote]
That is truly you will make more money with the reseller then the regular.
 
Well also with a reseller account you are not the only one on a server, therefor making downtime more common then if the hosting company had their own server and only their clients were on there.
 
Vast-Hosting said:
Well also with a reseller account you are not the only one on a server, therefor making downtime more common then if the hosting company had their own server and only their clients were on there.
Click to expand...

I don't agree with that completely. It depends on how good your provider is at network support. If they're good, if they provide top-notch service, if they watch things well and keep things running, if they're proactive rather than reactive (when they can be - everyone's reactive sometimes), if they handle the back end solidly, then a reseller might not have more downtime than if they were on a server by themself.

It would be more accurate to say that the reseller might have more client-action-driven downtime not caused by their own clients' actions (someone else's client runs a script which eats CPU cycles like M&Ms), but again - if the provider team is vigilant, that impact can be minimised. It does come down to the host doing their research and choosing a good, solid provider.

Reseller accounts do provide an easier "in" to the hosting business than dedicated servers or colocation - even managed dedicated servers. It would be interesting to see hard figures as to percentage of reseller-hosters who go titsup within a year (business abandonment, business closure, whatever) and percentage of dedicated.server-hosters who go titsup within the same amount of time. I have no idea which would be a larger number, or what other factors might come into play. Still, if someone is serious about running a quality business, it doesn't matter how they start out, or how long they stay in one state.
 
I agree with Lesli. Your uptime will depend on the quality of your provider. Reseller accounts may lead to more problems for the provider to watch, but a good provider will take measures to insure uptime. I have one reseller account for non-profit sites that has been with the same provider for about two years with very little downtime(close to 100%).

Reseller accounts are good tools for people getting thier feet wet in the hosting idustry. Also good tools for designers or developers to provider a turnkey solution to the end user. Having your own server does not necessarily mean more uptime because that we depend on individual skills as admins or how good you admin is.
 
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