Care to share any more? Your one liner doesn't have the same impact as alexjn's testimonial or all of the issues CET reported.Originally Posted by REM
Care to share any more? Your one liner doesn't have the same impact as alexjn's testimonial or all of the issues CET reported.
I am Avid Amiri. I received an email from a colleague today about a forum that was being circulated about me regarding my websites and business reputation. I have gone through these remarks and wanted to address these head on.
The CET poster was a woman who met with me several weeks ago. She told me she was interested in the yoga space. This was her idea not mine. I was as helpful as I could be and I offered to build her a site on a platform I had in the space and quoted her a specific price WITH top 10 search engine placements based on costs. After our meeting in Utah, I did not follow up but she approached me about moving forward. I tried to be as helpful and responsive in the process and let her know we could look at other sites in future if she did not want the site or needed time to learn more about the space. Carolyn, if you did not want a site from me than you were always in a position to go build one on your own or buy one from a different seller. I never applied any pressure and took half of my day to explain to you about the basics of the internet. This is information that I had hoped you would have known going into the meeting. The site has top ten search engine placements for some of the largest key terms in its industry. If you other posters feel like you can achieve natural traffic for sites and build a store at a fraction of the cost of what I offered Carolyn then you should go ahead and do so. If you can do it for less money than I can I will make a contribution to a charity of your choice based around the difference. Why not take me up on the offer? You all seem to know so much about this market given your ability to pontificate so it should be easy as pie.
In addition, your comments on the posts about the yoga and pilates site are just flat out wrong. You all repeatedly make the comment the site has “no traffic” and therefore “you are getting taken for a ride”. Before you start denigrating someone online I would advise you to do your research . The site I offered CET was WITH traffic and had ranking in the top 10 for its industry largest key terms. Sites in top ten placements for “yoga equipment” or “pilates equipment” are all worth substantially more than that. Based on how your judgments are made and then published, you all just seem to want to smear everyone who is in the business of selling a site. Take a minute, slow down and look at the facts before publishing your commentary online.
Alexjn, this is not the first time you have taken occasion to slander me online. Your comments are always sufficiently vague to impugn the site you claim you acquired but while you say my representations were inaccurate you fail to say why. What site did you buy? Are you just a competitor looking to vilify me? Who are you? Why don’t you step out of the shadows instead of maligning me behind a moniker. You claim that I threatened you physically. That is absurd. You imply I didn’t assist or help you with your site. I am willing to bet I have the records that chart training hours and time on the phone if you really did buy a site from me.
You say my sites are duds because of the following:
I use drop shippers.
Would you prefer that any buyer warehouse products in their garage? These are home based business and etail stores – not brick and mortar companies. That’s made pretty clear from the get go.
I charge a restocking fee.
So do a good percentage of webstores online. If you don’t want that to be your policy for a store you buy from me as a client then update the return policy to whatever you prefer. I fail to see how that makes my business model a flawed one.
There are Google Ads on my stores.
How does this make a site a dud? Millions of sites also use Adsense. Are they duds too? As a buyer of one of my sites if you are one you can always remove these. Google Ads are the most solid advertising programs for any website. They are not misleading, phishing, obscene, or pop up based. We place ads on sites as an option to visitors who come to our site and cant find what they are looking for. We receive a small monetary value for the click and the advertiser gets a targeted visitor. Incidentally, that is why search engines exist as almost all revenue for Google is produced through its Adsense and Adwords program.
Product pricing is MSRP
So you assert because I adhere to the retail pricing structure that vendors dictate then I have a flawed business model? These are the same price points that all dealers have to adhere. Following your logic then no web stores would ever exist and EVERYONE would just shop at Amazon. Sorry your wrong. Hayneedle.com and many other stores makes multibillion dollar revenues this way every year. But maybe you know something the industry does not.
Reputation of Internet Enterprises
I had two employees that were running my customer service steal over a hundred thousand dollars from me. They were not processing orders but spent all their time stealing and fencing products. Basically take the orders from stores and then sending them not to customer but to their friends. During that time period the BBB received a series of unresponded to complaints. Look it up with the district attorneys office for SLC. They were both issued 2nd degree felonies.
Alexjn, if you have been unable to grow your site send me an email and I will be happy to find people to troubleshoot and assist you and will help you myself. If you are just on some campaign to smear me online then what you are doing is slander.
As far Carolyn, you asked for a site in the Yoga market. I offered you a PR3 site with top ten ranking for a series of different key terms. I never encouraged the sale but gave you information on a business you asked me for. If anything I encouraged you to look at other sites and take your time if it wasn’t the right fit.
Trustbutverify indicates that a buyer he was involved with is generating 25k or so net profit. If he paid 65k for it based on the multiples he paid a fair amount for it and underpaid for it. I also have a strong and expansive contingency of very happy buyers that I am happy to share. Buyers who have achieved million dollar equity gains after buying sites from me.
How the lot of you can make sweeping conclusions and publish this defamatory material about me online, based upon a buyer who wanted a yoga site that I offered to build for her with top ten SEO, your speculation that it had no traffic (even though she gave you the URL so you could do 30 seconds of research) and was therefore a crooked deal, or to rely on comment of one individual with a history of slander against me and some nonsensical points about MSRPs etc. is astounding. I have a professional reputation and this is too much.
For you all to speak candidly about the drivers behind a good website is one thing. But for you to reference my name, my sites, and to use the language you have is quite another. Carolyn you should know better.
Moreover, if Alexjn has an issue with the kind of sports car I own or the taste in my leather furniture that hardly seems germane. Keep those comments to yourself. If you have comments about my sites, send me an email and I would be happy to diagnose what you are having problems with but you need to stop your slander and the republishing of it online.
My issue personally with the site that CET was interested in was the lack of revenue and large investment for someone with no experience in the field. She could buy businesses that were actually making a tidy profit right now for $50k, or start small and learn about the business before jumping into something that large.
Regarding your offer, I hope you are willing to put your money where your mouth is, because plenty of people on this site could buy an aged domain and put up an e-commerce site with products relevant to the topic of the site, and they will have successfully met your goal of "achiev[ing] natural traffic for sites and build a store at a fraction of the cost" of the $50k you tried to extract from CET.
For example, if I buy this, you will just donate the $15k difference to the charity of my choice? That took me about 30 seconds to find, so maybe you should jump on that offer before I find an established e-commerce site for $10k or less, or build one in a week or so at the cost of several hours of my time and a couple hundred dollars for a decent domain, and you end up endowing a full scholarship at my Alma mater.
I don't begrudge you the right to do business and sell your services to interested customers, and I haven't done any research into your past dealings to know if you are a honest dealer or nothing but a scam artist, but to come on here and act like your sites are the best deal anyone could ever possibly find is laughable, and doesn't paint you in a positive light.
I look forward to your response, and your upcoming generosity.
Avid, can you explain why you have the same IP and hostname as the member who posted this?
Did you create a phony account just to post a fake testimonial?
Once again, time for us all to get the facts straight. If we are going to take the time to engage, then lets do so with adherence to the truth and the facts of what transpired between Carolyn and me. Carolyn originally contacted me about a several hundred thousand dollar listing. I am the one who first told her that she should look at something smaller from me or from any other seller. I am glad that you agree with this sentiment as I still believe it. I suggested based on her level of experience that she should look for a site the fraction of the cost of the range she was looking into. If she was successful she could always look at buying or building another site. That typically is the most pragmatic approach for a first time ecommerce buyer and I have suggested it before. She asked me if I had or could build her something in the Yoga market. When other sites came up that may have been at different points in their life cycle, she kept coming back to the yoga site because she said these are areas that are of natural interest for her. If she wanted something smaller still than that was her prerogative. There was no attempt to coerce her to buy any site from me and most of my time was spent just educating her on ecommerce in general. Something I was happy to do as I got the impression she was very green in the space.
What I take issue with is the repeated misstatement of the facts. For you all to make the assertion that they site being sold had no traffic and to assert “she was being taken for a ride” is just false. A few seconds of research would have proved otherwise.
For you all then draw conclusion regarding all my sites is even more outside the realm of fairness and reason. You impugn my solar site and mention in posts that this site is strong but that the site is suspect because it doesn’t do any sales and has 6000 pages all designed to just capture leads. Ok… but did you ever put an item in your shopping cart and check out to see? Sounds like a logical thing to do. The store has relationships with over 37 different companies that drop ship on its behalf and it sell products. Once again, time to pull back on the reigns and do even basic fact checking before making assertions. By the way, the site also delivers Adsense, just like millions of other sites. Nobody’s trying to prevaricate from the truth on my side.
Look, my intention is not to come online and tell the world that the sites I products are the “best” sites that exist. My goal is not come into a forum where a group of people are having a conversation about the drivers behind a successful ecommerce company and blast them or insult their intelligence that I know better. If Carolyn doesn’t want to acquire a yoga site at my price point then she should not do so. My goal here is to clear up the facts. I ask you, how would you feel if you received an email alerting you to a forum where comments and epithets like “scam artist” “con artist” and “you are being taken for a ride” are replete and being used. Further assertions are being used in place of the facts. If any of you wanted or cared about the details before just making your claims I am easy to find online. You could have called or sent me an email to get the other side of the story.
I have built sites that have ranked #1 for some of the largest key terms on the internet. Terms like “fitness equipment” “gym equipment” “solar panels” “garden” “outdoor furniture” “garden furniture” and hundreds of others. These are difficult terms to rank for and my sites have held their positions for years. I have done consulting for some of the largest etailers in the country and divested my stores to major firms like Hayneedle.com. Some of these sites have resulted in million dollars gains for the buyers. That is correct, hundred thousand dollar gains but million dollar ones. I am not looking to impress anybody and don’t want the kudos of this forum. You should know though that my buyers have been able to quit their jobs, retire early, career transition, build ecommerce portfolios, among a number of other things. Again don’t sing my praises. Just be aware of the facts before starting down the road of publishing the kinds of remarks you did and this website republishing them.
You should also know that there are some buyers who have come back to me because sites did not conform to our mutual expectations. If there was an issue with the site before I sold it in these cases I have refunded buyers, I have given them free sites, I have offered them additional rounds of work, etc. I have also offered ongoing training and troubleshooting where it was requisite and have provided free consulting even 4 or 5 years after a site sale as a courtesy.
In terms of your comments on the site building a site comparable to what I offered Carolyn in the yoga market, I am still open to it as long as it if based around structured rules. Feel free to call me and we can discuss it. My number is 801 215 9320.
Sure, one of my past buyers was here with me today... follow up training and visit. I showed him the post and he started to respond. I told him not to bother and that I would take the time to respond myself. Happy to have you talk to him. Call me at the above number and I will put you in contact.
Hi Avid and REM and welcome to experienced-people.net
As the admin it's my duty to ensure that lively debate and differences of opinion thrive without crossing any legal boundaries. I can be contacted by PM and by email - webmaster at this domain - with specific complaints about a post.
Some of these sites have resulted in million dollars gains for the buyers. That is correct, hundred thousand dollar gains but million dollar ones.
I love to hear success stories. Would one or two of those customers be willing to drop in here and tell us which site they bought and how they made it successful? Perhaps as REM is here, he'd be willing to disclose his site and serve as a testimonial? People would trust his earlier reference more if he gave us his URL and story. I'd love to learn more about what he (or someone else) started out with and how it was built into a million dollar gain. It would be inspirational to many.
Avid,
I see that you wrote another post attempting to paint yourself as a victim, but didn't address the fact that I found an established e-commerce site for $35k (that actually has revenue and profits along with traffic), which is $15k less than the site you tried to sell CET.
Since it is apparently possible for someone to create a successful e-commerce site for less than $50k, are you going to retract your statement? Otherwise, do I have to buy that site or a similar one to get you to put your money where your mouth is, or should I just contact the seller and tell him to join the forum so his favorite charity can pick up a quick $15k?
Also, if you think that someone who bought a site that is generating $25k in profit for $65k got a great deal, you need to do some research. You aren't selling stock, shares in a private company that will be a passive investment, or even investment real estate, you are selling a part time job.
Finally, you saw this thread, and rather than responding yourself, you had a happy client of yours sign up at your house and post a one line statement backing you up? Come on.
Avid, I've reread all the posts concerning you. I understand that your upset, but I think if you reread, you'll find that most members of this forum have treated you fairly. Before you do though, understand that we spend every day in a marketplace that is filled with scammers who's offerings look very similar to yours. Just go to Flippa.com and you'll get the idea after looking at only a few listings.
I think have to admit, that some members of this forum jumped to conclusions. Again, please understand the marketplace we're used to. That said, please reconsider how you were treated over all by the forums. I think your emotions clogged some of your vision. In fact, I would say that CET received some sound advice considering the approach she was taking.
In conclusion, I ask that you reconsider your evaluation of the community here and even consider sticking around and sharing some of your expertise if you have time.
I'll add that I personally thought $50k was at too high a multiple given market conditions.
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