Selling a Website

[Getcanvas]

Hi all, has anyone sold an e-commerce website on here? I’m looking for any recommendations which website to advertise, my supply website to gain good exposure. The website is GetPrintSupplies.co.uk thats ranking well and has great seo and turnover running for 8 years.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

 

[Clinton]

I have sold dozens of websites.

What's important is not the "ranking well"!

Ranking comes and goes. In fact, if the majority of your business comes from SERPs then most sensible buyers wouldn't touch your business with a bargepole.

Also, you mention "good turnover". No sensible buyer is interested in good turnover! What is the "net profit" the business is making?

Do you work full time in the business?

What is your risk exposure in terms of referrers ie. is there any referrer (from your web analytics programme) that accounts for more than 10% of your traffic / sales? If free Google traffic accounts for the bulk of your visitors (ouch!), what percentage is it?

And what are you doing to fix this problem?

Without knowing a lot more about your business it's difficult to advise where to sell it (just avoid that crap Flippa site).

 

[Getcanvas]

That’s a good start, I have been looking at sites like flippa lol

Yes turnover and profits are very different indeed but still healthy. I work alone running admin/orders/dispatches. Working 6 hours a day mon-Fri. It has a lot of room for expansion and also many more lines available to import and sell. Importing/container prices have also dropped so even more healthier margin's to be had

Have you a private way to contact you, I can show more details requested? That’s if your interested to sell and valuate?

 

[Clinton]

Sorry, I can't advise you privately on this. I don't buy/sell websites any more and I don't sell businesses, I'm not a broker.

I provide a niche advisory service for larger businesses (minimum £5m in turnover or £500K in PBT).

But I can advise you here in the thread.

"still healthy" doesn't mean anything. First you need to deduct £30K or £40K for the work you're putting in. The profit is only what's left after paying that salary. And if everything else adds up, and there aren't some horrible hidden risks (99.9999% your "business" has huge hidden risks), you'll probably see offers of 6 months to 18 months worth of earnings when/if you put this up for auction.

If you work alone, you're not really selling a business, you're selling a job. As with selling anything you need to know who your target customer is. In your case, your target customer is not people looking to buy a business. It's the average muppet who has a few bucks and who fancies giving up his job and trying his hand at an online business. Or a family with one breadwinner where they are looking for some time-pass activity for the stay at home partner.

I have a website where I posted a lot of information on buying / selling online businesses. I haven't updated it in about 20 years, but you'll still find relevant and useful advice there. The site is here.

A lot of people use Flippa. I know Flippa far better than most people do. I was trading on Flippa before it was even named Flippa (when it was a Sitepoint marketplace) and I was the biggest operator there at the time. I have a huge amount of data and analysis on what goes on at Flippa (including all the shill bidding). If I tell you here what I think about how dodgy that platform is, if I give you my honest opinion, I'll be inviting a defamation lawsuit. But there are numerous website brokers, there are sites like empire flippers and there are the usual business selling portals I've listed here.

 

[UKSBD]

If the site ranks well and gets lots of visitors, would it not make sense to put a message on the website for a week or 2 saying something along the lines "This website may be for sale - contact *** for information".

Probably have more chance of people who may be interested in buying the site, seeing the message there than anywhere you advertise it.

 

[antropy]

great seo and turnover running for 8 years.

But little profit? Or why else would you want to sell?

Paul.

 

[shabbadoof13]

Hi @Getcanvas

I sold my business this year which was a 100% online website business (forum+blog).

I listed it on flippa however we conducted the sale away from the site but through Escrow as otherwise flippa take a fee for basically just shoving you through escrow(dot)com anyway

something to consider if you do list it there.