Selling a Ebay Business - Whats it worth

[elliot986]

Hi,

I am weighing up the option of selling my ebay business and want some advice.

Has anyone ever sold a ebay business/ know the worth of a ebay business?

Roughly turning over 85k with a net profit of 25k...

If I was to sell, how much would be a reasonable price.

Cheers.

 

[Patrick05021989]

I believe there is no option to sell eBay business ( specifically the account ).
From what I understand you would have to obtain permission from eBay which apparently is not an easy task

 

[elliot986]

Hi, thanks for your response. The actual ebay account switch can be done manually (just change the seller info and passwords) cant it?

I have had a look on businessesforsale dot com and they are selling there ebay businesses?

I would be selling the stock, contacts, account ect also.

 

[fisicx]

It's in the user agreement:

"In connection with using or accessing the Services you will not...transfer your eBay account (including Feedback) and user ID to another party without our consent;"

https://www.ebay.co.uk/pages/help/policies/user-agreement.html?ssPageName=f:f:UK

 

[elliot986]

I see. Guess I will have to contact eBay then. If i do get permission any ideas on a valuation?

 

[Alan]

It is worth what ever you can get for it. You are selling, so set a price that you want. I'm assuming that the £25k isn't actually profit, but what you earn out of it instead of wages, so people would say you are in effect selling a job rather than a business.

 

[Mr D]

It is worth what ever you can get for it. You are selling, so set a price that you want. I'm assuming that the £25k isn't actually profit, but what you earn out of it instead of wages, so people would say you are in effect selling a job rather than a business.

Most small ebay businesses (and this one is small) are jobs rather than businesses.
Very nice job for some people.

Not so nice if ebay cancel the account due to unauthorised sale but I'm sure a good buyer will have a clause in the contract regarding claiming money back from the seller in that instance..

 

[Mr D]

I see. Guess I will have to contact eBay then. If i do get permission any ideas on a valuation?

A few grand maybe?
There isn't a set way to value very small businesses except what someone actually pays for it. Lots of businesses advertise themselves for sale highly - and don't get a sale.
More than once seen a business sold for under 25% of what the seller was initially asking for it.

 

[Clinton]

You don't have a sellable business, you have a job. Develop the business so it's running without any reliance on you, create a new eBay account in the name of a limited company, build your feedback on that new account and return in a year or two.

Till then accept that you've succeeded in making a bit of money on eBay as a side hustle, but have not succeeded in building a business with transferable value.

You might get some mug willing to buy it but the effort involved in finding such mug might make the whole exercise pointless.

 

[Matt1966]

I personally think people have jumped the gun far too quickly with this.

- How many hours do you put into the project per week?
- Are you keeping the stock yourself, or is it Dropshipping or something like that?

eBay (can be) 99.9% automated. If you're putting barely any hours in, investors would be jumping on you with a reasonably good price because they can set and basically leave it.

The likelihood is, you probably are running it like a job like the guys above have already said - but I wanted to ask valid questions which really do change the demand/valuation of a business.


One of my very first projects was completely automated, making ~7k p/a. Yes, it didn't make a lot of money, but when I put it up for sale it was snapped up very quickly because it required next to no effort.

 

[Mr D]

One of my very first projects was completely automated, making ~7k p/a. Yes, it didn't make a lot of money, but when I put it up for sale it was snapped up very quickly because it required next to no effort.

Yes, a business is more attractive to investors than a job.
The latter being of interest to those looking for a job / looking for a change of job.

 

[elliot986]

Hi, thanks for all the feedback.

I currently am putting in around 2 hours a day. The time is just in the physical packing of the goods and dealing with new stock when it comes in.

It would make a nice little earner for the right person. Obviously its not going to be worth mega £ but it surly has some sort of value. I currently have around 50k (selling price) of stock and that would all be included as well as the suppliers info etc.

I have seen similar 'business' listed at £35,000 and some of which have actually sold according to the sites they have been listed on.

Thanks again for all the help.

 

[elliot986]

All the stock is kept by myself, I have a self storage unit where all the stock is held.

 

[Mr D]

Hi, thanks for all the feedback.

I currently am putting in around 2 hours a day. The time is just in the physical packing of the goods and dealing with new stock when it comes in.

It would make a nice little earner for the right person. Obviously its not going to be worth mega £ but it surly has some sort of value. I currently have around 50k (selling price) of stock and that would all be included as well as the suppliers info etc.

I have seen similar 'business' listed at £35,000 and some of which have actually sold according to the sites they have been listed on.

Thanks again for all the help.

Yes it has some sort of value. What someone looking for a job will pay for it.
What that number is you can find out by selling. The price you want and the price you get can be VERY different.

£50k selling price of stock? Whats the purchase value of the stock?
Then discount that to get the value someone else will pay.

 

[elliot986]

The purchase value is around 9k

 

[Mr D]

The purchase value is around 9k

So that's the value to any other seller.

Discount somewhat in that money may be tied up for months or years waiting for it to sell.

 

[The Byre]

It would make a nice little earner for the right person. Obviously its not going to be worth mega £ but it surly has some sort of value. I currently have around 50k (selling price) of stock and that would all be included as well as the suppliers info etc.
I have seen similar 'business' listed at £35,000 and some of which have actually sold according to the sites they have been listed on.

I'm afraid that @Clinton nailed it - and even if you do turn this eBay account into a 'real' business, eBay businesses have one huge drawback - you always have near to zero customer loyalty and near to zero goodwill. You are as good as your last listing and the only goodwill you have is your feedback. Add to that, the fact that you can lose that account at any moment and you can see why eBay businesses are not an attractive buying target.

You have feedback, info on suppliers and some stock.