A Successful Site Purchase

[benitez17]

Since there are so many threads on here discussing the many pitfalls involved in buying a website, I figured I would share some information about a recent purchase I made from a member here that went flawlessly.

I saw a site for auction on Flippa that I was interested in, so I contacted the seller to confirm some information and ask about some other sites that he mentioned he would also be selling soon, and then placed the opening bid. I was subsequently outbid, so I then placed a second bid that was a fair bit higher than the high bid, but was still well below the fair value of the site. It ended up that my second bid was the highest at the end of the auction, but wasn't close to the sellers reserve.

I contacted the seller to see if we could work out a deal for the site, and it turned out that he had a bid that was already close to his reserve and right at my maximum bid, so we discussed the other sites that he was planning to sell, and reached an agreement on one of them. Once the agreement was in place, the seller gathered all of the account information, and when he said that he had everything required to complete the transaction, I sent him payment for the site. Within hours, I had cPanel access and login information for the site, and the domain transfer, ad account transfer, and other required transfers were done the next day, so I set up the domain on one of my servers which finished up the transaction.

Basically, the sale went well because the seller was organized, reasonable, professional, and had verifiable proof of all of his claims, and I got a fair deal on a quality but underutilized site that will fit well into one of my existing networks because I was reached out to the seller based on a snippet of information in hist listing, I was willing to negotiate, and I moved quickly to get the site before it went to auction.

I'll post more information if the seller doesn't have an issue with me posting a link to the URL I purchased and the original auction.

[petertdavis]

I'd be curious to see the auction, just to know what other members here are buying.

[Clinton]

I know the member. I'll drop him an email and ask him.

I contacted the seller to confirm some information and ask about some other sites that he mentioned

That's initiative, folk! That's the kind of proactive approach that will get some great deals (rather than relying on just auction browsing all day long).

[midascode]

Of course that is fine Bentz, please show the URLs

It was a pleasure to do business with you also

Barry

[hooperman]

Congrats benitez, I hope the site does the business!

[tke71709]

I have a hunch I know the auction(s) he is talking about.

Spill the beans Benitez

[benitez17]

I assumed that Barry wouldn't have a problem with it and I was going to email him to make sure later today, but apparently Clinton beat me to the punch.

Anyway, the original auction is here: http://flippa.com/auctions/84045/Gad...d-2454-in-2009 I "won" with a bid of $1100 but because I was so far below the reserve, it didn't matter. I really don't understand why there wasn't more interest in the sale, because the site is making a couple hundred dollars a month just sitting there, and if someone put some effort into it, could probably make a lot more.

Anyway, I contacted Barry about this auction not long after it was listed, and also asked about his other sites that he will be listing in the future. He has a number of sites that are similar to GadgetLounge.net that are available, so we began a running conversation over email, and I was thinking about buying a couple of the sites as a package. Once the auction ended, I contacted him to try and work something out, but he got a reasonable offer for GadgetLounge.net that I wasn't willing to beat, so that site was out. We continued to email each other for a couple of days, and finally agreed on a price of $1800 for a single site: VIPGlamour.net. It has some recurring revenue of a little under $90 per month from a couple of text link ads, a couple thousand visitors per day with about half from the U.S. and the most of the rest from Europe , and a pretty simple business model that I can either follow in a couple of minutes a week or hire someone else to update, and I have a bunch of other celebrity/gossip sites, so it will be a nice fit for me.

The reason I wanted to write a post about it is that it was basically a perfect example of how a sale should be managed by a seller, so hopefully the people here who are looking for advice on how to buy or sell a site could use this as an example. Barry was:

1. Responsive to my requests.
2. Ready to provide all of the relevant information a buyer would want (traffic history, revenue source and history, business model, terms of the sale) and made it available without any hoops to jump through or attaching weird conditions to access to the data (requiring people to bid as proof that they are serious before allowing them to see what they are bidding on is a favorite of mine).
3. Friendly, easy to talk to, and professional.

If more sellers at Flippa would follow his example, we would probably spend a lot less time griping about the listings there. It's too bad that Barry wasted money on a Flippa listing, but I guess he got at least 2 sales out of it, and didn't have to pay any success fee, so maybe it wasn't a waste after all.

Finally, he has a few other sites for sale that look like good deals as well, but I closed a advertising deal that is going to take up a lot of my time and bought a network of sites for quite a bargain, so my plate is overflowing already. I'd recommend contacting him if you are looking for a good project or two.

[Clinton]

And, midascode, if you do want to list a site in the pre-moderated BSTE, I'll approve the thread.

[tvanslooten]

Thanks for sharing your experience here. Great info here on many different levels. Congrats on your purchase!

Travis

[Paul]

Hope my first site purchase goes as smoothly as this one did. Good to know there are professional people out there selling in a proper manner. Good luck with the new site.

Paul