Home-based e-business - an option for the self-employed?

3.4.2. Web Hosting Re-seller

Web hosting re-selling is often touted as one of the basic stepping-stones into a home-based e-business. It allows anyone to enter this fast growing market without having to make expensive and highly risky investments in buying servers and data centers, and be involved in the upkeep of the equipment By signing up as a reseller, one is able to start a web hosting company quickly. Most of the time, it is not possible for prospective customers to know whether he is buying web space from a reseller or not. Web hosting services are often offered in conjunction with allied services such as search engine submission and web site design that could bring in extra revenue.

There are lots of re-seller plans for one to choose from in the market, and the prices are highly variable. Some hosting companies may charge a fixed fee for a fixed or unlimited number of domains, whereas others charge a fee for each domain. The choice should be made carefully because it could bring disaster should the need arise to switch to a different hosting company. All your clients' data may be affected or lost during the transfer. Moreover, your clients will not be amused if their site goes down regularly. Some web hosting companies such as donhosts.com [10] and fasthosts.com [15] offer unlimited domains, unlimited web space, and unlimited e-mail accounts for a very low fixed monthly fee of GBP 35-49. In theory, these accounts offer unlimited potential for profit: a reseller based in Hong Kong would be able to undercut the prices charged by all local web-hosting companies. However in practice, there have been a lot of complaints about their services and business practice. Accounts are often shut down suddenly without notice because the hosting company felt that the account was consuming too many resources. In order to have the account re-opened again, the reseller is asked to pay an exorbitant fee. A more reliable bet would be reseller schemes that offer much less on paper but ones that guarantee a 99.99% uptime. However, the potential profits would be much less. Therefore it is quite true that one gets what one pays for in purchasing reseller schemes.

 In selecting a web hosting re-seller program, there are two major criteria other than price, capacity and speed, these are the up time guarantee and the technical support. If your clients' web sites are always down, it will surely affect their business and lead to dissatisfactory. Web hosting companies that can provide an up time guarantee are more reliable and can save its re-sellers a lot of potential trouble. Since web hosting is a service business, it will inevitably get a lot of customers' requests and inquiries. If you are a re-seller with little technical knowledge in this field, it is better to choose a main host that can offer 24 hours technical support. Some host can even provide an unbranded support center where they can answer all technical inquiries directly from the end users. One should also be aware of the fine print in any re-seller agreement, such as restrictions on the web sites that can be hosted, bandwidth use, and the right for them to terminate any account without notice.

Summary

There are many e-business opportunities available for home businesses. They are broadly be divided into joining affiliate programs, selling physical products, selling soft products, and services. The requirements of which vary widely depending on the particular business. In the following chapter the essential components that goes into a successful e-business will be examined and discussed with regard to the different types of e-business opportunities.