Why Do Web Hosting Companies Appoint Resellers?

The Web Hosting industry is constantly run-over with competition, sometimes healthy, sometimes cut-throat. One of the main ways of beating the competition and inching ahead is to get up to speed with the big boys in the game. This means reaching out to potential customers and getting your services to them or getting them to your services. The best way of doing that is by localizing yourself and getting to the level of understanding that they have about your business. The best way to efficiently do this is by having resellers fan out and spread the word. This article explains why hosting companies appoint resellers and evangelists to market their products and services.

Ready Customer Base

A major reason why hosts want to push their products through resellers is because most resellers have a ready customer base and are part of an allied industry. Many web design and development firms take up resellership as a side business to supplement their business. This means that the web host has a ready set of customers who will be educated about their products by the reseller. This also means that customers who are loyal to the reseller for his own products will also be loyal for the services, since they are serviced together and the end user has developed a certain comfort level with them.

Market Penetration

Rather than the hosting company going into uncharted territory, they would prefer if a local person is able to reach out to the local audience and get their business. Even local businesses would prefer having assistance at an arms length away, rather than some unknown company at some unknown location. Not only can the reseller provide assistance, but can also educate the customers in their own medium in a way which is most comfortable to them. For example, language maybe an important barrier which can be overcome by resellers on the ground. Even though people may have basic knowledge of english, they may not be very comfortable in jumping into something as technical as web hosting, if they do not have a hand to hold initially.

Personal Touch

Local resellers know exactly how to deal with their clientele and know exactly what to offer and how to present it to the end user. Certain businessmen may be having a certain price perception based on their own industry and hence the value of a web hosting package has to be accordingly pitched, to help them understand the situation in their own terms. If a web host sends out a marketing team to tap these markets, they will rarely be successful, especially because they would need to first learn about these characteristics and then apply them, something which is highly improbably and also inefficient.

Payment Collection

When a reseller purchases a reseller package and resells the space at a premium, he deserves that premium for the headache and resource consumption that he will be bearing. Not only is he bearing the burden of support and training of the clients, but is also willing to collect payments, which is a pretty challenging task and can vary in difficulty, depending on the market situations and the norms of the industry. Different industries and traders have different payment systems and payment understandings. For example 30 days credit maybe a norm in many places, where in some places only cash transactions are accepted. For a global web host to get into the intricacies of payment handling can become quite a task.

Technical Support

Amongst the most important points why a web host outsources his sales, is the point about technical support. A web host does not want the headache of supporting clients and dealing with trivial support requests for configuration and general maintenance. He would prefer that someone else handle this bit of the work and leave only the server administration and higher support to them.