Reseller Hosting
If you surf the Internet, you’d notice that more and more small business operations focus on the resale of Web hosting services.
What is reseller hosting?
It is a relationship between a (hosting) service provider, and a special kind of customer, called a reseller.
A reseller, according to Kamran Rizvi, in his article What is Reseller Hosting?, can either:
* act as an agent for the web hosting company – advertises the service as being with the actual web hosting company and gets a cut whenever people who buy direct from the web hosting company mention the reseller’s name
* act as a marketer for the web hosting company – sells the service but advertises it as being with the actual web hosting company; all further contact that customers have is direct with the web hosting company
* act as a web hosting company in its own right
o buys web space from an actual web hosting company and sells it (at a profit) to customers, along with support
o gets a cut (and provides support) whenever the actual web hosting company invoices customers in its (reseller) name, or
* buy a large chunk of web space and bandwidth from the web hosting company and resell that into individual chunks of space/bandwidth to customers; customers contact the reseller for support
What are its benefits?
* ISP/hosting company can expand its business (and customer base) without overextending its marketing and sales operations; can funnel sales/marketing resources into technology upgrades etc. instead
* allows small companies/resellers (without a lot of technical knowledge or infrastructure investment) to profit from a small piece of the Internet services market. How?
1. resellers pay a fee to the original provider
2. customers pay monthly fees to reseller (for the work it does in setting up the accounts)
3. resellers profit from discounts provided by hosting company (the more accounts it sets up, the more its monthly income)
* offers hosting companies greater efficiency (since resellers are often based in countries other than their host)
What types of people/companies choose this arrangement?
* Entrepreneurs
o with basic people skills and a working knowledge of how the Internet operates,
o who want to run a business out of their home(s),
o who want to get into the Internet services business, but can’t afford the required equipment, software, bandwidth and storage space
* Companies
o that want to cut back on their own hardware and staffing costs by simply reselling another company’s service(s)
o already providing a related service (ex. Web design, Internet consulting) that want to add Web hosting service to their portfolio
What are the types of services can you resell?
Most aspects of a Web hosting operation can be resold. Among the specific services that you can resell according to the Web Host Review Industry Magazine’s FAQ’s About Reselling Web Hosting are:
1. Hosting
* Shared Hosting
* Dedicated Hosting
* Virtual Private Server
2. E-commerce – merchant accounts, storefronts and hosting packages specifically geared toward e-commerce can usually be resold
3. Mail servers – some clients prefer to just have their e-mail capabilities taken care of (but not their Web hosting needs)
4. Other related value-added services – can include:
* Domain names and domain name services
* Search engine technology and databases
* Webmaster tools (HTML optimizers, server uptime monitors other webmaster-related tools)
