Also just a fun note my previous post Why Bother With The Hassle(The Refund Edition) featured a example of a not so good refund policy with the Video Professor. I also featured a fun edited image of John Scherer(the founder of Video Professor, that guy with the white mustache). Well our bandwidth provider got a DMCA takedown notice from the Scerer’s lawyers for posting a image of him. Yikes! Atleast we know someone is reading!

How many times have you signed up for a Video Professor disc? One of their free discs to teach you word(you figure its free and your grandmother can probably use it). Or how about canceling an AOL account?

Look at the dislike out there, one google search of Video Professor yeilds hundreds of un-happy pages about the service.

The process of just canceling(let alone trying to obtain a refund) is horrendous! Everytime I have ever called one of those places I always ended up getting a refund, after a agravating 1 hr of waiting or answering meaningless questions they finally allow me to get my money back. Now not only do they not have my money, but you can be sure that I will never recommend them to anyone I know!

At Powerhost we have decided to ‘do things right’ from the start. You as the customer know if you make enough noise we WILL refund your money to you eventually, we as a merchant know deep down we will as well, so whats the point of going through the hoops to do it?

We have had to refund some money. Sometimes we have had customers with no explanation for wanting to leave, and that is fine! Sometimes we have screwed up and they want to leave, which is fine too. Most of the time there are some sort of other circumstances at play(site closes, or costs too much, etc.), usually we work a bit harder to make a compromise and try to help them out. But in almost every conceivable situation, we will always eventually give them a full refund for most of our services, we figure if you leave us on happy terms we are more likely to see you again.

And its true. About 50% of people who have left us and requested refunds and happily received them have done one of the following:

• Turned around and signed back up with the same or a new domain
• Thanked us and written a good review about us on a forum or website
• Referred someone new to our site

So why deal with the hassle of refusing to refund money, then turning around and refunding it anyways, when you can do the right thing and make your (non)customer happy. It might cost you money in the short run, but will save you money in the long run.

Heres the setup: You love our service and refer a friend. Everyone gets rewarded! You get yourself 50% of his payments to us, FOR LIFE. We get a new client(who we will promise to love and care for). Your friend gets himself the best darn hosting on the internet!

If you are a current customer, its almost too simple to sign-up as a affiliate. Just login to our Customer Control Panel(we like to dub it ‘Client Central’). Once there click on the link that says ‘Affiliates’ as shown here:

Click the box saying ‘Activate Now’ and presto! You are a affiliate. We even throw in some snazzy links and banners for you to put on your website.

Gone are the days of getting Microsoft’s Frontpage:

These are the days of simplified pastels and sleek design:

Step number 1 to success with your e-commerce site is design. Much like a brick-and-mortar storefront your webdesign tells the tale of what prospective customers have in store for them. We have all walked into a diner or shop that was less than inviting, and more often than not, nothing was purchased from that establishment. So hunker down and get yourself some decent web design.

The next step once you have the customers in your store is the coax them into purchasing a product or service and giving up their precious credit card information. Unfortunately for legitimate sites out there, there are too many illegitimate sites posing as real sites. Savvy users are scared away when things like SSL certificates are not present or have a error. That is a instant dealbreaker for many users. Additionally you must present yourself as a legitimate merchant. Most legitimate merchants do not take payment through 2checkout or a similar service. They have gone through the hassle of setting up their own Merchant Account. This way the user can identify the store on their credit card statement and be reassured that the company they are doing business with is professional and safe. Most people do not know the preocess of becoming a Credit card merchant. Without going into all the details, suffice it to say they do not just hand out merchant IDs. You must prove yourself to the credit card companies and your local bank. That is not to say they are impossible to get, however if you are doing business without proper paperwork don’t count on it. PowerHost uses CDG Commerce for our merchant account provider. We have used them from the start and would not image going with anyone else.

Don’t get discouraged and think your site cannot be successful without its own merchant account. Plenty of sites do just fine taking Paypal. However to bring your site to the next level you will need a alternative for your users. Plus those Paypal fees get old real quick

Power Host Staff

We do not foresee any issues however please email support@pwrhost.com with any issues.