Best solution for offering Wedding Websites

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Posted by kwanzz, 11-11-2009, 03:28 PM
I work with an online wedding stationery store that is interested in offering "wedding websites" to its customers. i.e. when a customer purchases a wedding invitation they will have the option to sign up for a personalized wedding website - essentially they'd be buying hosting that will include a website builder of some sort and a website template themed to match the invitation that they purchased. The simpler the better. Being new to this I searched the forums and it seems that this would require the following: 1. a reseller account with 2. WHMCS for billing and 3. rvsitebuilder or plesk sitebuilder to allow the customer to build their site Am I missing anything? If not, the next question is about customer service. I wouldn't want to be responsible for helping customers who have trouble getting their site set up, or have billing questions etc. Is there a company that will handle the recurring monthly billing as well as the technical customer service questions and allow me to simply provide the customers, a sign up page and website templates?
Posted by ZacharyW, 11-11-2009, 04:52 PM
Well I know that Innohosting offers end-user support, however I am sure you will need to manage your billing and handle monthly invoices, etc. Check them out and see if they fit your needs. http://innohosting.com
Posted by ldcdc, 11-11-2009, 04:58 PM
1. No host will take the responsibility of helping end users build their sites. A bit of guidance may be offered, but I doubt anything more than this would be OK with the vast majority of hosts out there. Technical support the hosting account and its functionality, not website development. 2. If the provider is to handle billing for you, you'll probably have to go for something that is integrated into their system. Such systems, where you'll basically be an affiliate (just getting customers to sign-up), are typically quite rigidly built, and don't allow for the customization you seem to require for a weddings focused hosting business. As such, I think that your best bet would probably be reaching an understanding with a host, forming a partnership etc.
Posted by kwanzz, 11-11-2009, 05:29 PM
Thanks for the feedback so far - I'm not totally opposed to doing the billing and customer service. If that isn't something typically handled by the hosting provider I'll do it happily. Customer Service aside, does it sound like I'm missing anything? Is a reseller account my best option or is there something else I should be considering?
Posted by PremiumHost, 11-12-2009, 01:57 AM
Online sitebuilder simplifies web development tasks but still requires particular level of computer skills, and a good sense of design. I'm sure it takes time and efforts for someone who uses online sitebuilder the first time. You may consider your business model in a different way depends on how much you want to charge and how many potential customers would sign up the service.
Posted by SaaSMX, 11-12-2009, 03:12 AM
I think you should be looking for something simpler, and considering wedding websites are temporarly, the majority of couple would prefer (due to the lack of skills) the service of those companies that offer free templates and hosting on a subdomain or domain.com/user service to input only basic info about the wedding, the couple's story, pictures, etc. I think you should give this service to customers for a very low fee marketed as a free addon service.
Posted by kwanzz, 11-12-2009, 11:07 AM
It's true that the customers will be looking for a simple way to post wedding details, pictures etc and will not expect to pay much. That's what I want to provide - I'm trying to make sure that I understand what software I need to do that. Is there a more basic site builder software than rvsitebuilder? Is it possible to limit the features available to the customer so that they can easily use the templates I'll provide to upload their details? As suggested, this will be ad addon or upsell and will probably cost no more than $5 to $10 per month. That's what our potential competitors charge (see ewedding.com for an example of what I want to set up)
Posted by Kaumil, 11-12-2009, 11:52 AM
If you're not in full control of the support, I suggest not doing it -- unless you want your primary business to get damaged by bad support from the hosting people.
Posted by hostgrazy, 11-12-2009, 12:48 PM
no matter how, you still need to handle part of the hosting solution. i know that chhost.net is offering the total package for reseller. you can try to send enquiry to them.
Posted by hostultimo, 11-12-2009, 01:55 PM
You should really consider building the websites on a sub domain because to purchase a domain simply for a wedding is too much of stress. If you're going to do the sub domain hosting you would not need a reseller account for that. Simply create the sub domain, place the necessary files in there ie index.html, default.html etc and give them the url to give to other family and friends. When the wedding is over. go online and post the information (maybe a little adverts etc) wait a month or two then delete the sub domain. You would need a simple management system for that especially if you have a few clients everyday. I would also recommend getting a really nice generic wedding domain name such as mywedding.com or weddingpage.com Good luck
Posted by kwanzz, 11-12-2009, 02:36 PM
You're right, most people would be fine with a subdomain or even a folder (their url could be something like mymainsite.com/sites/theirname). So in that case a reseller account might be overkill, but I figured I would need a reseller account as: 1. Some customers will want to use a custom domain 2. I'll need the ability to bill and do recurring billing. I assumed I'd need whmcs for this. Is there another option? I suppose I could have an ewedding.com clone built through elance or odesk but was really hoping to be able to use something "off the shelf". Does anyone have any suggestions as to the best combination of hosting and software packages to accomplish the ewedding.com functionality i.e. the ability to sell a basic website template (that could be customised) and temporary hosting to a customer requiring a temporary website?
Posted by hostultimo, 11-12-2009, 02:44 PM
I would recommend going with Host Gator simply to get the templates if that is your main concern. Another benefit of host gator is that they go out of their way to also help you with the technical stuff. I do not see clients asking for a custom domain name since not many ppl seem to be keen on the subject. Once you advertise for the sub-domain feature (but do not mention it as sub-domain in your ads because some clients would feel that is inferior) they would more than sign up for your wedding service. The prices would be would be considerably low because a shared hosting account ranges from 4-10 USD and you would cater to one time clients (since they would marry once hopefully ) which would see you making more than 300 % profit once you price it right. PS:- it does not have to be expensive. 20 USD is good for design (if a template is used and you know how to edit templates yourself to save the cost of hiring a designer), hosting for x months, and a few updates (with one of your ads on the site to attract other clients)
Posted by kwanzz, 11-12-2009, 03:09 PM
cpoalmighty - Are you suggesting I use just hostgator regular shared hosting? I see that they have a site builder, but will that allow me to provide design templates and allow the customer to be able to input their personal info? Also how would you suggest I handle the billing? From what I've read, the best package is whmcs - Ii didn't think this would work with hostgator share hosting.
Posted by hostultimo, 11-12-2009, 03:29 PM
At first, I was under the impression that you were going to provide this service to local clients of the business you work in but now I am under another impression. Let me explain. If you are going to offer your local clients services, you would not need whmcs for sub domain accounts and so forth. Since you would be the main one dealing with the accounts you could simply collect the money locally and then do the administrative tasks as you see it fit. I do not think tens of thousands of persons are going to visit a sub domain in any given month and as such you should not have an issue with bandwidth. In terms of diskspace, you will have to manage how long a sub domain would stay active for. So you could keep it up for 2 months or even 6 months then simply delete and set up your new clients etc. (whmcs is mainly used for reseller to make the setup of hosting account much easier. It handles the domain name, the size of the space given, even handles for overages etc. If will be highly useless to you if you mainly deal with local clients who pay cash in hand or use your local linx machine for payment) Intl client- you can use whmcs for the handling of the billing etc in terms of integrating it to paypal or some other 3rd party processor (or merchant account) to collect payments online. What you need to know is that using web hosting and WHMCS is not that simple and you should always try to read up on it before jumping into it (esp reseller hosting) I recommended host gator because they have great uptime and you dont have to worrry about your site going down. Host Gator's shared hosting package would be ideal for you and you should not have any problem with them at all. Its unlimited but always be aware that everything has a limit
Posted by kwanzz, 11-12-2009, 04:06 PM
Thanks for your feedback. We have both international and national clients, with the national clients being located all over the US. All our clients purchase and proof online so there is no local interaction. I understand that there is a learning curve associated with offering web hosting and WHMCS. I have prior experience launching our site as well as managing a remote virtual private server but I fully expect I'll need some time to become familiar with the new interfaces. What I'm looking for right now is help identifying the best setup (and the software involved) so that I can focus on learning those rather that spending my time researching potential setups/solutions.
Posted by hostultimo, 11-12-2009, 04:17 PM
I would suggest you actually go to the respective sites...ie whmcs site and a hosting provider you feel comfortable with (could be host gator because of the level of support or I heard that fat cow is good also) and see what you think. Once you get over that minor hurdle you will be fine. By the way...Host Gator gives you free WHMCS which should be a plus for you but they do not offer any support for it though