posted on June 30, 2002 06:45:24 PM new
Need Advice on solution to permanent photo host for web store and auctions.
I sell on ebay (around 100 listings a week) and also have a non-ebay web store with over 1,000 items. Clearly a good realiable photohost is critical. The webstore images support both item with multiple count (that may be stocked for years and years) (and some that move slow that also may be up for several years) In the distant past I used photopoint, paying for 3 accounts to host all the images, first they shut down for a few weeks, later they went bankrupt without notice ruining my online business. I then found a new host that I was assured was reliable, unfortunately this has not proven to be correct, after a lot of problems, they are now apparently going to shut down my account with them. They objected to emails I sent to them) this will leave me with no hosted images to support the web store (ebay is easier to take care of so I am not too concerned about that right now). I am seeking advice in a couple of directions:
1. What can I do ahead of time to be able to prepare when a photohost goes down or cancels my account? Each webstore item listing has a URL to point to the image(s) that will now have to be rewritten, this is very time consuming and costly, can someone give me a better solution to deal with this? I cannot recode over 1000 listings by hand. Has anyone run into this problem? Did you come up with a good solution to this for your web store?
2. Has anyone found a really GREAT photohost? By great I mean, they have been around at least 3 or 4 years, are in good financial shape, are extremely reliable (have redundant servers, mutiple links to the internet, hotbackups, good access time, 24 x7 reliability and monitoring, FTP bulk uploading is mandatory, fixed fee per month or year, at least 100 megs of web space for the account , and if they answered email reliably that would meet my needs! If they were nice people, are genuinely cared about their customers and worked hard to help them that would be a major plus! If they have a past history of unreliability or not answering emails I don't want to deal with them at all. SO ones to avoid are helpful to know too!
I have learned a lot from this board and any advice that folks can provide would be appreciated.
posted on June 30, 2002 06:57:34 PM newhttp://www.pair.com/ is where i've been for over three years. I have never had a problem and as far as I know they have never been down during that length of time.
This was what John from eBay's SAP recomended when he owned it as AAPro.
It's never failed me and I run 100 - 400 auctions at all times.
posted on June 30, 2002 09:16:38 PM new
Thanks for the suggestion, the site looks very good and I will definitely check into their services. I appreciate your assistance.
