This could go quick - Affliate Showcase

[Andy]

Hi again,

Yet another site far from my reach, however...

AffiliateShowcase.com belongs to Ken McArthur and he's decided to sell it. Ken is a great guy with a super reputation. He emailed about this last night. I replied to him, suggesting he stop in here because I believe it would be a good deal all the way around.

Chances are someone on his list will buy the site, but who knows? One thing Ken says he wants is for it to be bought by someone who can do well with it. I believe it was is first big success.

In any case, this may be a good one to watch... if we can get hold of any information.

Andy

[Clinton]

I'm moving this thread to BSTE. Thanks for the tip, Andy. I hope Ken does drop in.

It's a long-standing site that could really benefit from some TLC.

The bonus with a site like this is that it likely isn't earning a great deal (am I wrong, Ken?) so won't attract a lot of competition at auction and could likely be had fairly cheap. For someone who's looking to roll his sleeves up and do some work, the 8 years+ history of this site should be a great help in getting it ranked for affiliate program related keywords.

[delta4]

TLC?

[Clinton]

When I first came from India all this TLC, PDQ stuff confused the heck out of me. Even the quoting of salaries with a K - such as $20K and $30K - didn't make sense. It took a while to figure out that K was "kilo" or 1,000, that PDQ was pretty damn quick and TLC was Tender Loving Care. Now me A OK.

Where you from delta4?

[delta4]

ok

Where am i from? Portugal

[Andy]

Hi Clinton,

I never know where to post these things. Sorry.

While I'm sure revenue and membership has dropped off, I'm not so sure it's been that much. The site boasted over 60,000 (or 60K :-) members at one time. Of course many of them are free members and many, many of them came, registered and never came back but there still may be a solid core.

Andy

[Clinton]

Hey, not a problem, I don't mind moving things. Yours was an ok section anyway. Just thought this might get the thread more views.

The type of problem I sometimes have with people who email me is that their expectations of a selling price are based on what the site achieved in its heyday, not what's on the table now. Unfortunately, buyers don't bid based on past performance and definitely not based on performance in the distant past. They'll want to know what the site is making now and will want to see if there are any easy ways of improving those earnings. The seller's take on how easy it's going to be to increase earnings may not carry much weight. Buyers are also going to factor in a cost to redesign the site, remove blank categories, clean the database, tidy up the copy on the sales page. As far as subscribers go, "60K at one time" isn't what's important. It's how many are there now.

[meathead1234]

Looks interesting, but will need a lot of work to get going again. This is the kind of site that will sell well to a list of loyal subscribers, but not so well on the open market.

At first glance I can't see this being worth more than a few $100. I'd imagine it earns some decent residual income from affiliate program referral fees - so value will largely depend whether these cashflows can easily be transferred to the new owner (I'm assuming not).

[Andy]

Hi Thomas,

If I'm reading your post correctly, you may be missing something. Affiliate Showcase is really a member site. Members sign up to promote their favorite affiliate programs. They can do this for free but to get the best features, an upgrade is required.

To me the value depends a lot on what the paid membership looks like today. I'd also look at other factors such as how long members tend to stay. I'd prefer to compare that to a graph of how long the members have been there. It if members tend to say an average of 2 years and 80% of current members have been there for 18 months, well, ouch!

Another concern is the affiliate marketing model itself. Seems like there's a lot of pressure to kill it. While this may not happen, this type of marketing could fall out of favor.

Then there's the technical problems the site has seen including the database being hacked into and some problem with the sign-up process.

I like Ken. I believe him to be a decent sort, but he himself admits he has a soft spot for this site. That's okay, but I don't think that love should be included in the sales price.

All this is part of the reasoning why I encouraged him to stop in here. Ken can get an objective idea of what this site is really worth. And someone here might be able to breathe new life into it.

Andy

[Clinton]

Ken hasn't signed up yet.

This is off-topic but just thought I'd mention it anyway: Like you've advised Ken, on average I advise about 20-30 people a week who've contacted me for private advice to come to the forums and start a thread. Some of them drop in and browse around. But very few stop and post. This is a shame 'cause when they do we end up with some fantastic threads. The whole Avid Amiri thing started when someone called CEM emailed me for advice on buying a site and I directed her to ask in the forums and we discovered the business model of building a site, doing some SEO, getting some PR and then selling for sums that you'll never see in Flippa. So much so that TrustButVerify is now off to do it himself. Many of the other approaches I get raise very interesting questions, models, techniques and topics that would make for some fantastic discussions. Suggestions in a PM on how I can better encourage these people to actually start posting.

Partly because of this flow of emails and enquiries I get that I originally volunteered within the founding group to run this forum. It bothers me that we aren't making full use of that stream of interested buyers/sellers/players and everyone is poorer for it (including them).