Is bot making the new hosting?

As most people know I have been making bots for a while and, even if I say so myself, they are not that bad but recently I have seen a new breed of coder / bot maker appear that made me think back to when I had my hosting businesses.

They come in and undercut everyone else, to a point I wonder how they are actually making money. I saw the same thing happening in the hosting arena where everyone was offering the world for pennies (and people here have heard me spout that a lot before!) and it was at that point that I made the decision to sell up both the businesses, take the cash and take some time out.

My prices are not that expensive so I thought, but given the current financial situation across the globe it would appear that the basis of bot purchasing is now based on price (again, something that mirrored my experiences in hosting). I could compete with the lower priced people but what kind of support are these people giving if they are making a couple of bucks on a bot? I pride myself on support so thats why the prices are set to the level they are. I learnt that the hard way when I first began - one particular bot needed that much support (due to the site changing, not bot quality ) that it worked out that I lost quite a bit of money!

Perhaps I am wrong and this is only happening on BHW, I will have to investigate other forums to see whats happening elsewhere, but I guess its time to revisit the business plans and see what else can be done.

Thought I would post as I find it strange that what I saw in hosting about 8 years ago has now started to appear in exactly the same way in the BH / automation world. I am trying to second guess where this will happen next......

I guess what I want to say is good luck to the new breed of bot makers, and good luck to the buyers - it seems we are entering a new chapter in the automation game.

Yep, yep, yep. Because of this - people right now think that they can pay peanuts for countless hours of coding. Sad situation, but 3rd world coders (I also live in a 3rd world country, btw) really drag this profession deep down. Sad reality nowadays.

Fatboy, my dearest. Don't second guess yourself. I did this with jewelry and it damn near ruined my business. Walmart may be cheaper than Macy's, but Macy's has higher quality items. You are Macy's. They are Walmart.

The quality of those bots are terrible though, the price really is a reflection of it's quality. The really talented people have nothing to worry about, in fact, I'd argue that it helps. If a guy spends $15 on a slow shitty commenting bot but see's that it does indeed earn him a bit of money, he may be inclined to purchase a better solution from someone more qualified so that he can increase his earnings.

It's also good to see that beginner programmers are starting to make money early on, hopefully it will inspire them to hone their skills and work on bigger and better things.

redrubies said:

Fatboy, my dearest. Don't second guess yourself. I did this with jewelry and it damn near ruined my business. Walmart may be cheaper than Macy's, but Macy's has higher quality items. You are Macy's. They are Walmart.

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this ^^^ you get what you pay for (and I live in China, I know what I'm saying!!)

redrubies said:

Fatboy, my dearest. Don't second guess yourself. I did this with jewelry and it damn near ruined my business. Walmart may be cheaper than Macy's, but Macy's has higher quality items. You are Macy's. They are Walmart.

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This.

As with anything, there are always people who see something working then think they can emulate that without actually having an adequate level of skill or professionalism.
They then undercut everybody.
The person that really suffers is the customer who has purchased a lower quality item without any support.

These fly-by-night clowns tend not to hang around too long but there is always another joker who takes their place.

On BHW we are a little spoilt because we have a number of excellent bot makers such as yourself and tompots but doing a trawl of the web shows up the buffoons you are referring to.

Just keep on building quality and you will be OK.

Rather than worry about price competition and quality of service. Providers of service should be looking at how to reduce their cost, improve process efficiency and reduce their price. This is business, price and perceived quality by customers are very important. If you really want to charge a high premium, you have to invest a lot of building a strong brand name whereby everyone knows you for your strength. Example, why we drink Coca cola and not some unbranded cola? It is all about branding. Different business uses different strategies.

I will suggest that you read up on the deep blue ocean strategy and evolve your business model. Don't compete in the red ocean by pricing as your profit will not be worth it.

I am quoting my experience, I am a web host reseller. Why would anyone want to purchase from a reseller whereby they can get it cheaper if they go direct to the web host. I also do not want to compete based on pricing. Therefore I can give the web hosting free and package it with others of my services that clients require. This allow me to charge a slightly higher pricing. For the same amount of work, I can sell two/ three products rather than one. Customers who bought from me also feel value for their money. This is all about marketing.

Apart from this, you need to target the right place. By promoting your service in BHW, you are open to competition based upon price. As there are many providers competing for customers. Service and support can only get you so far. You also need branding in BHW in order to charge a premium. Your reputation, your posting (valuable contribution) and interactions with other users (gaining their respect) will be one of the tools that you can differentiate from your competitors.

Sorry if my writing is taken out of context and may not be useful for you. I just hope it will help you in your business.

Fatboy you are a reputable bot maker and nothing can change that (maybe something but i don't know) random ass bots just pop out of no where and people still buy then for the cheaper price. Your bot prices are really really reasonable and good but i can find other bots that are cheaper and 10 times lousier than your bot. Don't worry about it, cheap and worthless bots never get updated and will definitely get patched in a few weeks or even a few days on popular websites like youtube. Just keep up the good work with your bots and compete prices with better bots instead of crappy bots and you'll do really well!

If you don't consider yourself a marketer, but are a very good programmer - I'd consider partnering with someone who really gets the marketing side of things. Just take Ubot Studio for example, there was probably half a dozen people part of that business and from my calculations its done well over $3,000,000 in revenue.

Why step over dollars to pick up dimes? Who knows, but lots of people do.

If think that if you will code for more unique requests, and not the overwhelmed field the general purpose bot making has become today, you will hit some pots. Maybe you could switch to bots, applications and software for higher-level industries than internet marketing.

Excuse my poor English, hope you get the point.

Its true that lot of bot makers are poping out offering cheap services but as we all know
cheap bot = no support = less effective updates = drops soon = money loss

I make my own bots (no ubot but real programming bots) and i think if a bot maker really know the potential of his bot he will never sell it, instead he will use it himself.

High Quality bot = Private Bots (real programming languages)
Moderate Quality bots = Bots on sell (mostly ubot)
Low quality bots = Cheap bots (mostly ubot or newbie bot maker)

No one is ever loyal to the brand that is cheapest, and no one relies on it either, when they REALLY need it. When times are tough, people flood to the cheapest hoping they can get what they need for less, and when the economy improves, they drop those cheap vendors as fast as they can, because they've proven to themselves that there is no substitute for quality.

I get spam IM's all the time, asking me if I'm interested in "cheap hosting". No. Not just no, but hell no, and fuck-you for asking. How much time is it going to cost me to transfer all my sites to that IBM 486 DX "Server" in your mother's basement, and then transfer them back AND restore them from backups because they've all been infected because your password was "poop1" ?

Stupid people flock to cheap-ass vendors in order to get schooled on why some things cost more.

Nigel Farage said:

No one is ever loyal to the brand that is cheapest, and no one relies on it either, when they REALLY need it.

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I was just at the supermarket with one of my friends. She picked up the hotdogs on sale for a dollar. I asked her why she was getting those hotdogs. She never gets those. She gets the same ones that I get that cost $4.99. She loves these hotdogs. The ones for a dollar were the worst ones you can buy. The ingredients were enough to turn your stomach. But she was short on money because she had just paid all her bills and she was saving what she had left for the week in case of an emergency. And her kids wanted hotdogs for dinner. I got her the hotdogs we both always get because her kids were not going to like the ones on sale. I got them once and they were terrible. Anyway, you're right. No one is ever loyal to the brand that is the cheapest, and people do go back to the quality brand.

A couple more things. Fatboy, if it makes you feel better, everyone who sells something priced higher than others who sell the same thing goes through what you're going through. Everyone. You are not alone and what you are going through is normal. So don't get frustrated to the point where you lower your prices. It doesn't work. I know. I tried it and no one bought my jewelry. Look what happened when you were on donations only. Hardly anyone donated. There is a market for higher priced bots just like there is a market for higher priced jewelry. You just have to find that market and market your bots to them. By the way, my jewelry prices and your bot prices are not that expensive when it boils down to it, because you pay more for quality. Just like the hotdog story. Not all hotdogs are created equally and neither are all bots or all jewelry.

OP What comes to mind right from the get go, is that you were one of the first out of the gate on BHW compiling and building quality bots all delivered and sold with excellent support.

That alone sets you apart as you have a raft of differentiators that set your Bots apart from the cheaper new bots coming into the marketplace...

My take on buying the cheapest on offer is do not go near with a barge pole. But the way of the world in the main is that these days folks get sucked in on price and sales hype and buy as in your case cheap crap Bots.

But these vendors will as is normal "get hoisted by their own petard" smile buddy and keep on building quality Bots sold at your great value added price...

Why do I say great? Easy because buy bots from fatboy they work and the 100% purchase price ROI is paid back often in hours not days...

The vendors trying to shaft your market share are just that insignificant and albeit almost worthless as from the grapevine feedback I hear - very few of these cheap Bots are any use and very few actually work...

Note Bene - Newbies and cheap Bot buyers - Caveat Emptor - You get what you pay for - you pay f**k all - and you will get delivered f**k all...

I saw this same sort of thing in the 90s with web design. someone will always try to undercut you at the cost of his own profits just to get the customer...i never new how they made a profit or thought what they were doing was profitable. It was weird because this was a time when the waters were filled with people wanting sites...now I am seeing it with technical support...time to get a tangible product.