If you own a website and want to host it on a server, you can contact the hosting company directly or a master hosting reseller. A reseller is a middleman who sells website space/bandwidth to clients on someone else’s servers. By doing so, the reseller may be acting in any of the following capacities with respect to the web hosting company:

a) As an agent: In this capacity, you are entitled to obtain a commission from your principle. The reselling business is conducted on behalf of the hosting company. People buy web space or bandwidth right from the start.

b) For being the marketer: The name of the hosting company is used to run the business, but the client buys it. All future communications are with the web hosting company.

c) Pretend to be a host: You buy the web space and bandwidth from the reseller who, in turn, hosts you at a price negotiated with the actual host. However, the hosting company issues the invoice in the reseller’s name and keeps the cut. In both cases, you would depend on the hosting reseller for more services.

d) As an actual buyer: Acting in this capacity, the hosting reseller buys a part of the host’s server. You can then break them up into small pieces to sell to each of your customers at a profit. The reseller provides all support services.

An important point to note is that issues related to software, hardware, and connectivity are handled by the main hosting company, even though customers are in direct contact with the reseller.

Who is likely to be a hosting reseller?

Most likely, website designers, web developers, and system engineers are interested in offering a full range of web solutions to clients under one roof. The hosting reseller manages the clients through the web interface or ‘control panels’ (Plesk, Helm, cpanel).

Why is reseller hosting important?

a) Hosting companies can sell outright or rent their capacities for a decent profit.

b) Individual resellers are better positioned to attract more customers within a region in less time. This allows for faster sales.

c) Provides a secure business proposal for new entrepreneurs in the field of hosting.

The drawbacks:

a) The reseller might have to compete with their own hosting company. This obviously puts you at a disadvantage due to resource constraints.

b) Customers trust the host company more because the reseller is just an intermediary with little or no control over the infrastructure.

c) The rates of shared, managed and dedicated hosting service providers have dropped substantially, making reseller plans seem expensive.

d) New VPS technologies make reselling obsolete.

New Paths: Cloud Hosting

When many were of the opinion that reselling is slowly disappearing, the new innovation of ‘cloud hosting’ has saved the day for the hosting reseller. In simple terms, under cloud hosting, the website is not hosted on a single server, but on multiple servers. This means that the site is less prone to server failures and is hosted on a highly scalable infrastructure. So the customer can now trust the reseller.