Good idea or bad idea!

[RH4U]

Allow resellers to pay a small monthly fee for a complete webhosting reseller solution.

Resellers would receive a website to accept orders that is linked to a merchant gateway excepting all orders automatically. The order would have imprinted a special offer code that makes note in the database which reseller should receive which commission and the system automatically pays out to the reseller monthly for all commissions owed.

Commission levels would depend on the setup/monthly rate payed, but the reseller would sale under the main company name, sort of like a sales rep. and just receive commissions.


*The drawback= resellers would have to resale for the main company under our name and not be able to private label.

*The Pro's= small costs, ability to resale not only hosting but co-location/dedicateds/ and more, and no support issues to handle or fuss with running their own servers,etc.

Pricing structure would look similar to the below:
5% $15.00/monthly $25.00 Setup
10% $22.00/monthly $50.00 Setup
20% $40.00/monthly $100.00 Setup

Commission level would be the same for virtual hosting, reseller hosting, co-location, and dedicated servers resold.

What do you think good idea or bad idea?:banana:

<<MOD NOTE: This thread was originally posted in the advertising forums (Related Offers), however I felt it wasn't getting enough attention there and was general enough that other hosts/resellers might be interested in discussing the idea. While this might be grey as to 'not discussing one's own services or future services', I take that to mean more of not allowing, "Hey, I'm thinking of offering 2.4Ghz boxes with 400GB of transfer... what do you think?" This thread seems more of a general topic that can be discussed. When in doubt, please contact the moderators.>>

[RH4U]

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated?

[Chicken]

How is this different than an affilaite program? I realize they would get a web site, but...

[GnomeyNewt]

Well there is this new place I've been running into a lot, that has been setting up actual domain names and website for their resellers...


This is not much different and probally cheaper for both the reseller and yourself/hosting co. I would think they would be like just sales people, because they are selling your hosting. :c) You'd have bunch of sales people.

[RH4U]

Originally posted by Chicken:

How is this different than an affilaite program? I realize they would get a web site, but...


I see your point, we where trying to think of something that would envolve less time for the reseller to setup and market. Possibley if we offered them their own branded website, but then there are issues of how they can label the co-location/dedicated services...

It is just something we have come up with, we would like to offer resellers a way to make profits off of ALL services without creating a branding problem...

Back to the drawing board:(

[UH-Matt]

Sounds like a lot of work on the hosts part.

[Chicken]

If you could automate the creation of the reseller site (so long as they don't want modifications, or could do the mods with a site builder program), then it would probably save resellers a whole bag of time. I know that when I was considering reselling, it took me a long time to create the reseller site and I never finished it, thus never started (though everything takes me a long time, heh, and I often don't finish projects I work on :D). Maybe it's just me...

[hostpath.com]

Well, Chicken -- if you have projects that you need finished but can't or won't, get with me. I'll see what I can do. No charge, of course.

[RH4U]

Originally posted by UH-Matt:

Sounds like a lot of work on the hosts part.

The only major issue is like chicken stated, which is spitting out the designs in time for the resellers. Automatic designs is something we are considering, however then after only a few resellers everyone can spot the design and say "hey they are a reseller" so we are trying to find some other alternatives... A custom website builder that is designed for only webhosting templates has been thought of, but that is alot of time and investment that may not pay off for the long haul...

We are looking at all sorts of things, basically we are just trying to make the already good idea of resellerhosting better for our resellers by supplying more of a turn-key process.. if you have any idea's or input please give me a shout..

[Living Media]

I've got another worry: quality monitoring.

Would these resellers then be providing the first line of service and support for the people who sign up through them? If so, how would you deal with the reseller / affiliate who doesn't provide good support? Since they wouldn't be private-label, if they do a poor job of customer support / relations, it's your company that might take the hit. How would you find these lesser-quality resellers, and how would you terminate their program? (They're not the majority, but they are out there.)

Also, coming from the other side of the equation: what's the incentive for me to sell for your company? I can't branch off and launch my own company without giving up "my" client base, so that avenue's closed...or is it? If I'm allowed to take my "clients" with me when / if I move on, what provisions have been made? Do I have to pay you a set fee? If so, is it one lump sum or a per-client amount (or some other equation)?

And a third point: if you're going to set these folks up as branded sellers for your own company, why not just bite the ****** and make them salespeople, on a commission basis, without the full-blown sites? It saves work for you.

Just playing devil's advocate. It could be a good idea. Not one that I'd prefer to take; but some people would like the idea. Hopefully some of these questions might help you flesh out this concept.

[RH4U]

Thanks for the feedback, thats why i made the post, because i wanted to know from others view... Well the original idea was to only provide them with an identical company site with our brand that they would sale from at a commission, we would provide all the support...

After some user feedback and feedback from this forum most would rather see a independent site created under their brand, but still allowed to sale all services on commission. For the same reason you mentioned above about the clients, but then this pretty much takes it back to a typical reseller setup which is something we where trying to avoid. We already provide reseller accounts and they are successful, but we are trying to think of something easeir for the reseller, the majority of resellers are actually quite lazy when it comes to the setup side of things...

[RH4U]

At this point it looks like we wont be changing our reseller program much, but this is what we may be doing instead to help assist resellers during setup....

-Provide Designs at below cost $50.00 for MainPage,Sub-Page,Central OrderPage
-We are partnering with a merchant provider that will allow us to offer merchant services to our resellers upfront with no setup fee's/virtual terminal fee's accept a small $49 for Authorize.net terminal setup(below usual retail by 50-100) and standard transaction fee's.
-Provide SecureSSL at cost(20% discount) through a partnership we are now arranging.
-Future Outsourced Support
-Free Enom sub-accounts

We are also going to be developing support documentation and manuals for all of the above services and providing them under one roof allowing resellers to add-on or take away any of the above extra services at anytime.. We are also looking at possibley opening an outsourced support division for our resellers though this will take time..

Something else that we are considering is providing a 3rd party WHM/Cpanel automation program at discount that has the ability to link to our merchant system and install this for free for all resellers, however we have yet to find one that we approve of..

[proxy]

Let me say that i have been working with reseller and application hosting for over 3 years. To be very honest i have to say that i doubt people are interested in such a service, most people would be looking to setup their own prices and own website basicly build their own identity for the fun of it and heck sure you may get a few bites but in the end its never going to be as anonymous as you hoped and someone is going to end up losing out in the end, it wouldnt be worth it to have this product developed.