Overselling...How much is too much?

S

Senad

New member
Lately I've seen overselling for tremendous amounts of space and bandwidth for a very small fee. Now I know it was here a loong time ago but it seems to be getting worse and worse in regards to the companies offering 5GB Space, 200GB Bandwidth for $7.95/mo. What is your input on overselling and how much do you think is too much in regards to overselling?
 
I don't think you can put a concrete figure on how much disk space and data transfer is too much and would be considered overselling if so-and-so price were put on it.

Disk space and data transfer, although a major part, are not the only thing that determines the cost of a hosting package.
 
Yes but once again if you do not have limits and offer a ton of space and bandwidth for $7.95 or $3.95/mo (Yes I found a host who is offering 5GB Space, 200GB Bandwidth for $3.95/mo) then where are you going to pay for employees or your services? Surely you agree that my example mentioned is quit ridiculous and can fall under the unlimited category?
 
The budget hosting part of the industry has always pushed the overselling limits from an unbelievable level to the next one. In practice, the data transfer quote is often of no actual importance, as it all comes down to what the host's "resources abuse" threshold allows the customer to use.
 
Yes I'm registered for that but that is only showing the industry standard. I'm trying to discuss the extreme standards that we have seen coming to light lately.
 
It can be very difficult to put a solid number on these things, as stated.

Believe me, I feel where you are coming from.

The problem is, a lot of these outrageously overselling hosts, have no staff to consider in their price, as they are usually youngsters looking to "get rich quick." You see them come and go.

The key is, there really is no limit. There is no "too much." It comes down to what you as the customer, thinks is ridiculous, or too much.

As long as the host can get away with it, without running into too much hassle, believe me, they will continue to push the line out a little further, until one day it the line can be pushed no further.....then they'll cross that line, if they think they can. At which point, a new limit (line) is set.

As long as consumers remain uneducated about our industry, they leave themselves open to be taken advantage of, sad but true.
 
I've heard the standard is 0.30 per GB of data transfer, but I don't know neither who established this standard nor where it came from ~ :dknow:
 
Mark is dead on target. The same could be said about the Credit Card industry. Consumers who sign up for a card with 20% APR, yearly fees, and monthly maintenance fees just to get a free T-Shirt, or save 10% on a one time purchase of $30 are getting hurt pretty bad, but they chose not to take 5-10 minutes and sit down to read the terms.

Same could be said about the kids who go into college, get loans, credit cards, and rack up huge bills without realizing the damage it could be doing to their credit history.

These companies/individuals feed off the uneducated.
 
Overselling is like a cancer in our business. By driving down the prices and increasing the number of customers per box, we are actually driving ourselves out ot business.

Low prices will result in poor service and ultimately, a bad experience for the customer.
 
In today's competitive hosting industry everyone tries to outdo their competitors with more features, more bandwidth, more space, more email accounts for lower and lower prices. It really gets ridiculous and leads to the harm of the industry overall.

So many hosting clients have been harmed by overselling, poor performance, reliability issues as well as poor customer support due to which they have become suspicious of trusting any hosting company. It is totally understandable that the hosting companies oversell because of profits.
 
So many hosting clients have been harmed by overselling, poor performance, reliability issues as well as poor customer support due to which they have become suspicious of trusting any hosting company.
Click to expand...
Yet most of them continue to search for 200GB+ of data transfer for $4. :)
 
Dan,

Does that not sum it up? I see no good things about overselling or offering cheap plans and high amounts of everything. I find it is not a good business model and in the long run your clients and you hurt.
 
I think the GoDaddy case is a pretty good example here...$3.99 and they'll give you the world. I think many of us should study that and see the direction that they will head in (well we are allready starting to see that direction :laugh: ).
 
Godaddy can do that theough, because they are so big. Other companies, such as smaller ones can;t because they are so small.
 
Not even GoDaddy can do it. They have had enough problems as is according to testimonials (slow server performance). Basically they threw their services from the fire into the lava by offering more than they can chew.
 
It's too much when it has any chance of negatively effecting performance. This is really seen in basically any company with a 'dollar-host' perspective, or certain overzealous companies that care more about making money than how they do it (like godaddy, perhaps - though i haven't had any experience there).
 
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