$8K a month site sold for just $50K. What do you think of this?

[Clinton]

This Flippa auction.

Made $245,000 in 2010 alone, according to the seller.

Why only $50K?

(Mind you, this one's a bit of an odd one as well - sold for $95K.)

[petertdavis]

Clickbank sites are a huge risk. I certainly would NOT pay $50K for that site. May as well go to the corner store and buy $50K of lottery tickets, I stand a better chance of striking it rich that way.

[benitez17]

This Flippa auction.

Made $245,000 in 2010 alone, according to the seller.

Why only $50K?

It's a Clickbank MMO site that is selling a lifetime membership. The site has been around longer than most for sale on Flippa, so refunds might not be that much of an issue, but it still doesn't give off a good feeling. Also, if it made $245k this year, and it is only making $8k a month now, that means that revenues have declined significantly.

(Mind you, this one's a bit of an odd one as well - sold for $95K.)

That is a terrible listing description, and you have to watch some video on the site for 8 minutes to find out what the site is about.

[Casey101]

this one[/URL]'s a bit of an odd one as well - sold for $95K.)

I sat through that video just because I really couldn't believe the site sold for so much money. What the heck is this guy selling? Any idea what "secret" he is selling that wouldn't make people demand their (200%) money back as soon as they heard it?

I have to hand it to the guy-- I like the idea of the Google style page with lots of white space. I guess we all have it in our minds to trust the white space. No bright colors; no ">>>>CLICK HERE<<<" links. Just a video followed by a very honest looking dropshadow button. Even the background to the video presentation was a "teacher green chalkboard" color. Very subtle yet apparently very effective.

I take it that he generates income from affiliates that send him business. That being the case, why would someone pay 90K for something like this when all one would need is a domain name, a microphone, a powerpoint program, and a sales pitch.

Is there something I'm missing here or is there practically NO barrier to entry? The obvious follow up questions being:

IF YES> Why aren't we all doing this?
or
IF NO> What is the barrier?


-Casey L. M.

[Andy]

While I would not pass up a site just because its clickbank, I would also be a bit cautious. Both sites have low gravity* scores - Take that as you will, but it means most sales are made by the owner and not affiliates. While this is considered a red flag by affiliate marketing gooroos, for someone buying the site, it would indicate to me that the owner maintains a lot of direct control here. Not necessarily a bad thing.

To me the real red flag is the nature of the products - money making opportunities. I am not against making money. I am not against showing others how to make money. But this is a field one should enter with extreme caution. The FTC likes to scrutinize these as there are many scams out there. Besides this, before I bought any mmo, I'd want to make sure it worked for myself. Something that may be hard in an auction situation.

if I owned such a product, I'd prefer a private sale to one of my most enthusiastic customers. After all, who would better know the value of this product than those who have worked the concept?

Andy

*Gravity: Number of distinct affiliates who earned a commission by referring a paying customer to the vendor's products. This is a weighted sum and not an actual total. For each affiliate paid in the last 8 weeks we add an amount between 0.1 and 1.0 to the total. The more recent the last referral, the higher the value added. (from Clickbank)