A Glimpse into the Shared Hosting Market in Lebanon with Mohammad Kalash, Designer's ID

Designer’s ID – a web design and development company based in Lebanon, specialising in providing web design, development, digital marketing, and full branding services. The company is working with big institutions that are, for instance, in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. During our trip to Lebanon, we met with a young professional with 8 years of experience – Mohammad Kalash, CEO of Designer’s ID, who shared with us the struggles the hosting companies are facing in Lebanon.

Lebanon Market in Numbers

The population of Lebanon is 6 million people, with 400 thousand registered domains names. The most popular domain name is .com. Local ccTLD is .com.lb and is managed by the ADM. However, it is not that popular, mainly used by governmental institutions, schools, universities, and the American University of Beirut and has only 35 thousand domains.

Economic issues in Lebanon

People are mostly hosting outside of Lebanon. The local hosting requires 24/7 internet connectivity and power supply. In Lebanon exist some problems with electricity and Wifi. As a result, global hosting cannot guarantee 24/7 internet connectivity.

Electricity works normally 2 h/day. 1.5 years ago, it used to work 21 h/day. Due to this reason, companies, new businesses, and even regular people are buying generators to supply power to offices and houses for more than 2 h/day.

Currently, the power supply costs for the Designer’s ID for 40 employees costs $1000/month. In the future, the company is going to take the most convenient choice — to buy solar panels. They will have to invest money in the first purchase, which will lead to a decrease in monthly expenses in the long run. The cost of the power supply will be ~ $300/month.

Support Language

Lebanon is a beautiful country with educated people. Most Lebanese people are speaking 3 languages: English, Arabic, and French. These are one of the most spoken languages in the world. For this reason, the Designer’s ID can serve in numerous countries.

Pricing and Payment Gateways

According to Mohammad, in Lebanon hosting prices are high — from $5 to 15$ per month. Also, the exchange rate is unpredictable as changes 20+ times. $1= ~1500 officially, ~3000 ATM withdrawals, ~25 000 card payments, and ~35 000 exchange offices. Regular businesses cannot afford to pay online for hosting as there are differences between Lebanon pounds and dollars. As it is complicated to collect money for hosting companies, only monopolising companies can survive in the market. It is a reason why regular companies shut down – last year 2 hosting companies were closed.

People making online payments do them under certain circumstances via online transfers, but not by cards (Visa or Mastercard), as all accounts have some limitations. However, if one has a fresh account, it is possible to withdraw fresh dollars.

The most popular gateways — Stripe, 2Checkout, and PayPal are not available in Lebanon. Local businesses need to find payment gateways charging in dollars to pay another company accepting only this currency. In Lebanon, there are several local gateways such as NetCommerce or Areeba that can be used by anyone but they do not proceed with Lebanon pounds — only dollars and euros.

Website Builders

Website builders are great tool for individuals, small and medium scale businesses, and informative websites. Big businesses have more requirements that could be achieved by creating a website from scratch.

The first and the most popular global website builder widely used in Lebanon was WIX. After it was blocked, companies had to search for other builders, but 'there is always an alternative.'

Mohammad shared that the Designer's ID has tested the Site.pro builder and is suggesting it to their clients, especially, small and medium businesses. He highlighted the advantage of Site.pro, which is easy integration of payment gateway via API.

Wrapping Up

During the conversation, we got familiar with the current situation in Lebanon. Also, both speakers shared their experiences and highlighted some moments.

Often, businesses fail to ask their clients the correct questions when they struggle; in this way, losing a chance to understand the needs of the clients better.

By creating a 24/7 support team with coding help for free, they could help more clients struggling to find a solution to their problems. Sometimes clients don’t know which code would help them get a specific feature, and asking the support team in the live chat would benefit both sides.