What is a "reseller" account?
Becoming increasingly popular in recent years, opening a reseller account with a web hosting company is the equivalent of renting out a fairly large piece of property, and subletting it per square meter, or per megabyte to be more exact.
At one time, being a reseller was the sport of web hosting kings only; however these days with the cost of web hosting dropping rapidly, it is possible to become a reseller for less than $10.00 a month, if you know your way around the internet.
So why would anyone want to become a reseller? Surely the profits would be so minimal that it cannot be financially justifiable. The truth is that for the average reseller the profits in web hosting can be incredibly high. In certain circumstances, they can often reach more the 3000 to 4000 percent. The simple truth is that the average small company have little or no idea of how to go about organizing web hosting for their site, and don’t want to be bothered setting up the process. They are being asked sometimes for $25.00 a month to host a web site of five megabytes with minimal bandwidth traffic. When you consider that the cost in true terms to the reseller can be around 50cents a megabyte, you can soon detect that there are gold in them there hills or hosting. There is a certain commitment to marketing, providing customer service, to billing and receiving payment. Take all of these equations out of the loop, and the opportunity to make windfall profits are still very considerable.
If you want to take the risk and go big time, you can even rent your own dedicated or vps server and hope that you will sell enough web space to first cover your costs and then move into mega- profit mode.
To return to reality a little, the average reseller does not necessarily get rich out of renting web space. In most cases it is a matter of convenience and a way of covering some costs. You may find that web design and production companies offer free web hosting as an added incentive to purchase their services. There are even webmasters who have built several websites for direct marketing who open reseller accounts for ease of use. Instead of hosting eight or ten domains separately, they can host them under the same reseller account for ease of access and administration. Anyone who sets out to make reselling the main focus of their business, should take the time and trouble to learn as much as they can about the intricacies of web hosting, and what their potential customers will expect. Most of these people will be paying you a relatively small amount of money, but will be expecting first class service along with the ability to turn to you to answer any questions that they may have, no matter how trifling or insignificant it may appear to you.
To become a reseller, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist. You should be able to turn to your hosting service for answers to any questions of a technical nature as well as does not require extensive knowledge of the technical aspects of web hosting. In addition, any problems with connectivity problems should be handled by the server. However as far as your customer is concerned, you are their hosting company and the buck stops with you. That means that you should be readily accessible, even some times at nights and weekends. People whose website has disappeared from the waves tend to get a little impatient and want immediate answers. If you want your company to succeed you should find a way to provide them. If you don’t you will find your client base slowly dwindling.
Most of the major hosting companies, who offer a reseller service, offer a control panel for each of the web sites that are sub hosted. In most cases, your customer does not have access to the panel. And should not be given access as they may tamper with important information. However it does no harm to send your clients a monthly copy of web traffic statistics etc. as well as a few other gadgets of that nature.
Many small companies have become aware of the fact that there are web host resellers out there, and are wary of this new phenomenon. There major fear is excessive downtime, slow customer service response and inadequate technical knowledge. This has been the case with a number of resellers, but in most cases, the good ones for outweigh the bad ones. For someone who gets the reseller strategy right, they can own a very nice, user friendly business with profits can be more than worth any aggravations to be dealt with along the way.