Affordable Hosting
Everyone looks for the lowest possible price for everything, but is this strategy effective when it comes to hosting a website or online store?
Just look at PGG’s online store, which is trying to sell coal, I mean, upps. The store itself is written in such an awkward way that it can’t handle increased traffic. Moreover, the people responsible for the store couldn’t even choose the right hosting to handle the expected traffic…
Today, there are so advanced hosting solutions available that could easily meet the needs of a store like PGG’s. We have services like Allegro, which handles millions of users every day and somehow manages to function properly. Meanwhile, state-owned company PGG can’t even choose the right hosting for its supposed online store, which is a joke.
But let’s put aside state-owned companies that don’t need to worry about money or losses. We all know how these companies work in our country – they just want people to have jobs, regardless of their quality or competence. They don’t care about customer service…
You, when choosing a hosting company and type of hosting, should ask yourself if you can afford to burn through your advertising budget?
Let’s assume you spend several thousand zlotys per month on ads that are supposed to generate traffic to your website. But the phone doesn’t ring, the email inbox is empty, and you wonder why. One day, you try to open your website, and it takes 5 seconds, 10 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds, and then a error message appears, and you call your developer who built your website/store, furious that their creation doesn’t work properly (not working at all). Your developer will probably say that you were looking for an opportunity, a super cheap price, and the price was the most important parameter when choosing a service. So, you got exactly what you paid for – a mediocre quality store/website and hosting.
In the IT industry, opportunities don’t exist; we get exactly what we pay for. If you expect quality, you need to dig deeper into your pocket. There’s no way to buy specialist work at symbolic prices, because specialists have spent years studying and gaining experience in this complex technical field. Don’t be naive – would you work for 500-1000 zlotys per week on a client’s website? That’s only 4 thousand zlotys per month, which is hardly enough to support a family.
IT specialists earn between 10,000 to 30,000 zlotys or more per month because what they do every day is extremely complex.
Coming back to the topic of advertising expenses and a non-functioning website, you may have saved some money on building your store/website and hosting, but you’re wasting your advertising budget. You should ask yourself if it’s worth saving 1-2 thousand zlotys on building your website and several hundred zlotys per year on proper hosting, only to lose much more money on ineffective ads, and, what’s even worse, on missed opportunities that could have brought you profits if only your website/store was properly designed and hosted.
Before choosing an IT company that will build your website/store, don’t immediately dismiss the most expensive offers. Ask the companies about the reasons for such a large price difference in their offers. Ask every company, those who sent you the cheapest offers and those who sent you the most expensive ones, to explain where this difference comes from.
If you’re not an expert, then it’s logic that you should ask questions. Here, the strategy of buying cheap doesn’t apply – don’t buy a specialist service at a price where it seems like an opportunity.
I’ve taken over clients several times who came crying because they were scammed (they thought it was an opportunity…), losing money and having to pay again for proper work. In the IT industry, real opportunities don’t exist – why?
Because specialists in the IT industry don’t need to compete on price. The lowest “opportunistic” prices in IT offers are reserved for scammers or companies operating unethically by hiding complete costs that clients find out about later, often these are cyclical, non-optional costs without which you wouldn’t be able to handle your online store/website yourself.
You’re not a specialist, so ask questions – where does such a large price difference come from? Ask:
* Will the website/store be yours when you pay for it?
* Will the domain and hosting be registered in your name?
* Does the website/store allow you to modify its content, design, or functionality without any programming knowledge?
There are countless solutions that tie customers to their service providers. If buying an online store for 2000 zlotys means you’ll have monthly payments of several hundred zlotys for its ongoing maintenance or development, is it worth it?
There are few more expensive solutions in the ownership model where you don’t need a computer specialist, let alone a programmer.
Don’t look at the price of a solution; ask questions about why there’s such a large difference compared to more expensive offers. Maybe the service provider is trying to tie you down with their paid services or make you dependent on their costly modifications and developments?
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If you’re choosing an IT company to build your website/store and have any questions related to this topic or others discussed on our blog, use our free consultation (form below).
