Anyone using VPS?

I heard that using the VPS can reduce the order cancellation issue when we buy products on retailers’ websites, so I need more insights about this topic please:

  1. What is the VPS and how is it different from the VPN?

  2. Does it really help reduce order cancellations?

  3. Which VPS do you use (or recommend)? And is it free or paid?

Thank you so much.

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Virtual Private Server. A Virtual Machine at some provider. You install not a server operating system but a desktop one, for example Windows (or some desktop Linux, for ex. Linux Mint).

You can access it via Remote Desktop (or VNC).

And you are going to order from that virtual machine.

Like this the webshops will see that machine’s IP address, not a VPN’s exit node’s IP address for example.

Other way of use a VPS could be if you install a server OS on that, Linux, FreeBSD, etc., and you run your own VPN server what you are using exclusively. And again, the webshops will detect this VPS’s unique IP address, not a common VPN service providers’s well known exit node’s IP address.

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Hey @Muhammad!

Awesome explanation! Thank you.

So it is more powerful than the VPN, because the IP address in this case is not a shared, known IP address.

Are there any VPS trust-worthy and sercure providers out there? Can you recommend to me some of them?

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Many people say DigitalOcean is good, and Contabo is very good, but when you configure the VPS, select a datacenter located in the US. Still, google for VPS in the US, there are many “Cloud Desktop” services. They are pre-configured VPS systems with a desktop OS. (You can go even with Amazon’s AWS cloud.)

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If you are referring to order cancellations by retailers, then I am afraid using a VPS won’t help. This is a very commonly discussed topic. The retailers can see from your billing address that you are a business that is going to resell the product commercially.

The retailers are strategically securing brand deals to improve customer loyalty and they don’t want an ecommerce seller to grab all of the discounted items for themselves to resell them on Amazon or eBay for a profit.

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Ok, thank you. I will check that out.

I am now thinking about the security and privacy of these remote virtual machines. Is this an issue? I mean, does the provider have access to the private virtual machine dedicated to me? Can anyone else (the provider, a hacker, etc.) access my payment data (credit cards, PayPal, etc.)? My main concern is using that virtual machine to place orders on US retailers’ websites, so I am concerned about this aspect of security.

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A virtual machine is allocated on someone’s server, so they can access your data if they want. But this is true for Facebook, Google, Microsoft, your email service provider, etc. However, I don’t think a VPS provider or hosting company would be interested in stealing your data stored on a VPS. They may not even be interested in what you are doing, given they likely manage tens of thousands of VPSs allocated to clients.

(And it would be highly illegal too.)

I’ve heard about OVHCloud; I think they have a pretty good reputation… Do you personally use a VPS for this purpose (placing orders)? From your experience, do you think it is worth using a VPS to reduce order cancellations (in terms of benefit versus risk)? And thank you again for your time; your answers are really enlightening.

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For placing orders, I don’t use VPS (I only use the wholesale model), but I have a few VPSs for other purposes (email hosting, web hosting, backup, etc.). In the past, for my previous company, I had my own hyperconverged server cluster, and we provided VPS and VPS Desktop systems for our employees. We ran all our servers on top of our own cluster.

You’re welcome. I hope you will be successful with your orders.

I hope so too. Just if you don’t mind, while we are on the topic of canceling orders, I have one more question: If I set up a US LLC, then I will have a US address and a bank account based on that US address. Do you think that this will also reduce the number of canceled orders?

If you’re doing OA, then you should definitely use a VPS, not a VPN. Do all the research without a VPS, but for ordering, log in to a VPS, create an account on that website, and place your order. That’s what I do. Also, order cancellation is part of OA, it’s not because of using a VPS or VPN. They simply don’t want customers who are reselling.