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#3 in Google for Beach Towels 1700/month 100 Dropshipped Inventory

Great niche Aged Domain Averages 2,000 Organic Visitors per Month High Traffic Season is Coming!

http://www.justbeachtowels.com/

screenshot

Closed

This listing ended without a winner.

Bid History:
13 Bids (0 Pending)
Offer History:
None accepted (0 Pending)
Listed:
Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:11:59 GMT

Accepted Payment Methods: Credit Card, PayPal, Escrow.com

Description

This auction is for the domain and store located at www.JustBeachTowels.com.

Overview

JustBeachTowels.com is a web business owner's dream:

  • It's ranked #3 in Google in the U.S for a key term (see screen shot) - only beat out by Target and Amazon
  • The traffic converts
  • It receives 2,000 unique visitors per month of organic traffic
  • It sells 100% dropshipped inventory
  • Peak season is just a few months away

Hosting (Shopify)

The store is hosted at Shopify, which is dead simple to operate and provides excellent order tracking features. Products are fulfilled by three dropshippers, all of whom will continue to work with the new owner.

When the auction is complete I will transfer the Shopify account to the winning bidder, and transfer the domain (GoDaddy). You will not need to do any set up on your server if you choose to keep it hosted at Shopify. Of course, if you want to move to a free package like OScommerce you are welcome to do so.

Google Ranking & Traffic

This site has been on the first page of Google for a few years, and is incredibly consistent. Peak months are April-August, with November & December also bringing in a large number of sales.

The site receives around 2,000 visitors per month of which approximately 90% have typed a variation of "beach towels" into a search engine. All of this traffic is organic - the only advertising I do are a few text link ads (because I'm not very good at SEO). With no text link ads the site ranks between 4 and 6.

History

I purchased this site about 18 months ago and have revamped it twice since then. The first revamp did not result in many increase in sales so in late July I moved everything to Shopify, found 2 additional dropshippers to increase the product line, and in August sales took off and have been booming ever since. See attached screen shots for details on revenue from August through December.

I ran an Adsense campaign in early 2008, but the conversion rates were not good so I stopped Adsense in July.

The site has been around for over three years and its traffic and search engine rankings are very consistent.

Why I'm Selling

I originally purchased the site to flip, and after 18 months I realized it's time to let it go (that need is spurred by another project I'm starting). But let there be no bones about it - this site is a gem and I hate to see it go.

I don't own any other sites that sell physical goods so it's the "odd site out" in my portfolio. I also think with the untapped potential of this site it would be better off in the hands of someone who can continue to build on its strong foundation and take it to the next level.

Returns

I've had three returns (maybe four) in the past 4 months. Customers send the items back to the dropshipper and they credit my account. I never touch product.

Dropshipping

Beach towel dropshippers are incredibly hard to find. I personally spent over 60 hours over the course of 3 months searching for dropshippers. The contact information for these resources is worth a lot.

There is not much sophisticated competition in this arena since there are so few dropshippers. Someone with decent SEO knowledge can really clean up in this niche.

Bonus

I will also include a JustBeachTowels.com exclusive report titled "Top 10 Expert Tips for Saving Money at the Beach" that I was going to use to build a mailing list. The report is a 10-page PDF giveaway you can use to begin building your list.

Revenue Details

Revenue is generated from the sale of beach towels and accessories.

All products are dropshipped; I keep no inventory.

Total revenue for August 1-December 31 was $8483.52. Cost of goods sold was $6348.89. Expenses were $890.56.

My plans for increasing profit if I were to keep the site are as follows:

  • Move to the lower-priced Shopify plan, since I upgraded to use Coupon codes, and am no longer using them. This will save $35/month.
  • Increase pricing on $9.95 and $10.95 towels by $1-$2. I increased a few of them in November and it did not affect sales.
  • Move from purchased links to traded links which would eliminate the largest expense (advertising).
  • If you have a place to hold some inventory you could easily double your markup. Dropshippers take a large cut of the profit. If instead you bought towels in bulk and shipped packages yourself (or worked with a fulfillment house like Amazon Fulfillment), net profit would increase dramatically.

Traffic Details

See attached analytics.

Averages 2,000 high-converting visitors per month (climbs to 5,000 during peak months).

Attachments 5 public (0 verified)

Questions 38 public, 1 deleted

  1. Avatar for godigitalllc
    Posted by:
    godigitalllc (+2)
    Date:
    Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:24:58 GMT

    What is the cost of the towels from the dropshipper? Do you have a reserve in mind?

  2. Avatar for peter_act
    Posted by:
    peter_act (+4)
    Date:
    Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:46:04 GMT

    What are the standing monthly charges (Shopify etc)

  3. Avatar for babyboy808
    Posted by:
    babyboy808 (+5)
    Date:
    Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:53:49 GMT

    Please verify the site

  4. Avatar for scottatdrake
    Posted by:
    scottatdrake (+4)
    Date:
    Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:59:22 GMT

    Can you explain what is involved in forwarding on the orders to the drop shippers? Does that 800 number go to you? (If so, I don't see it listed with the expenses.)

  5. Avatar for seoguy101
    Posted by:
    seoguy101 (+3)
    Date:
    Thu, 08 Jan 2009 22:00:49 GMT

    Please clarify the following:

    So average monthly profit is approximately $258 (see below)? Is this correct?
    8483.52 - 6348.89 - 890.56 = $1,244.07/5= $258

    I assume your site is using the pro plan at shopify thats $59 a month...correct?

    How often do your suppliers change or run out of inventory? Is it problematic for your business?

    It appears your store only has 22 beach towels, and quite a few other products not related to beach towels...do you ever sell anything besides the towels or does that constitute 100% of your sales?

    According to my estimates you sell about 115 - 150 beach towels a month; whats your average markup in $$ per towel? And...how long does it take to process an order (or batch of orders)?

    Thanks!

  6. Avatar for JoePro1
    Posted by:
    JoePro1 (+8)
    Date:
    Thu, 08 Jan 2009 22:01:25 GMT

    What is your actual monthly net revenue please.

  7. Avatar for thehuntingdog
    Posted by:
    thehuntingdog (+3)
    Date:
    Thu, 08 Jan 2009 23:51:22 GMT

    HI I would like to see the answers to all above questions...
    you can PM me if you'd like Thankx!

  8. Avatar for coolguyrob
    Posted by:
    coolguyrob (+8)
    Date:
    Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:07:42 GMT

    1. The price of towels depends on the towel and the dropshipper, but the thin towels that sell for 9.95-11.95 cost 5.50 (though they just dropped by .40 this week). The towels that sell for $16.99 cost $11.04. On the bulk towels the margins are slightly higher.

    2. The standing monthly charges can be seen in the attached Financials screen shot.

    3. The 800 number forwards to my cell phone. I have it through kall8.com and you're right - I forgot to list it in the expenses. It costs $4/month.

    4. Net profit in November $357. December was $498. Average net profit over the past 4 months has been $258. I expect the peak months (April-August) to be at least comparable to December, as traffic spikes up to 4k-5k visitors during those months.

    5. I am currently on the $59 Shopify plan, but I am going to drop down to the $24 plan because I don't need the features of the more expensive plan.

    6. Suppliers have run out of inventory on 1 or 2 towels. It has not been problematic. I have had to refund maybe 2 orders in 6 months because of this.

    7. Forwarding the orders to the drop shippers is a simple online shopping cart for each of them. It takes about 3 minutes to input an order. I batch them once a day. I actually trained my VA to do this when I was out of town so I have documentation on placing the orders and can recommend a good VA firm to handle this for you. I was doing it myself simply to save the money.

    8. The store does have only 22 beach towels. Sales of non-beach towel items is minimal (it's included in the Excel spreadsheet, and it's maybe $30 total).

    One other expense I thought of today that I did not list - I spend $30 monthly to subscribe to be able to place orders with one of the dropshippers. The other 2 do not charge a subscription fee. Sorry about the missed expenses - I run 6 web businesses so there's a lot of expenses to look through.

    These are great questions - please keep them coming!

  9. Avatar for Ttec
    Posted by:
    Ttec (+3)
    Date:
    Fri, 09 Jan 2009 08:46:15 GMT

    "Average net profit over the past 4 months has been $258."

    Does that include the "$30 monthly to subscribe to be able to place orders with one of the dropshippers."?

  10. Avatar for Lourent
    Posted by:
    Lourent (+2)
    Date:
    Fri, 09 Jan 2009 10:09:50 GMT

    can your dropshippers send worldwide or is it restrained to the US?

  11. Avatar for dannyjohn
    Posted by:
    dannyjohn (+1)
    Date:
    Fri, 09 Jan 2009 14:11:05 GMT

    whats ur BIN?

  12. Avatar for comcenter
    Posted by:
    comcenter (+5)
    Date:
    Fri, 09 Jan 2009 15:03:40 GMT

    Does shopify handle all the billing for you? Would you only need a paypal account to handle revenue and dropshipper payments?

  13. Avatar for coolguyrob
    Posted by:
    coolguyrob (+8)
    Date:
    Fri, 09 Jan 2009 16:01:24 GMT

    > Does that include the "$30 monthly to subscribe to be able to place orders with one of the dropshippers."?

    No.

    > can your dropshippers send worldwide or is it restrained to the US?

    My dropshippers only ship in the US. But you don't have to live in the US to run this business.

    > whats ur BIN?

    I don't have one yet. The auction is not yet 24 hours old.

    > Does shopify handle all the billing for you? Would you only need a paypal account to handle revenue and dropshipper payments?

    Shopify handles all of the payment processing. You need a PayPal account with Website Payments Pro activated to collect funds.

    To pay the dropshippers I simply use a credit card since each of them have a simple ecommerce site setup, buying towels is like buying on Amazon.

  14. Avatar for coolguyrob
    Posted by:
    coolguyrob (+8)
    Date:
    Fri, 09 Jan 2009 16:09:57 GMT

    Site access verified.

  15. Avatar for webgeekent
    Posted by:
    webgeekent (+4)
    Date:
    Fri, 09 Jan 2009 16:35:00 GMT

    can you create a the same google analytics pdf but for the whole of 2008. I know your sales only took off in aug after the revamp but it seems this was a converion increase not a traffic increase???

    thanks.

  16. Avatar for webgeekent
    Posted by:
    webgeekent (+4)
    Date:
    Fri, 09 Jan 2009 16:46:55 GMT

    do you have any cart abandonment stats?

  17. Avatar for webgeekent
    Posted by:
    webgeekent (+4)
    Date:
    Fri, 09 Jan 2009 16:52:28 GMT

    how do you calculate shipping or do you have some sort of plugin from the drop shippers to calculate just like they do?

  18. Avatar for Ttec
    Posted by:
    Ttec (+3)
    Date:
    Fri, 09 Jan 2009 17:06:29 GMT

    So, just to clarify, the average monthly profit for Aug to Dec was $228?

  19. Avatar for coolguyrob
    Posted by:
    coolguyrob (+8)
    Date:
    Fri, 09 Jan 2009 17:12:54 GMT

    >can you create a the same google analytics pdf but for the whole of 2008. I know your sales only took off in aug after the revamp but it seems this was a converion increase not a traffic increase???

    Correct - it was simply an increase in conversion. Traffic stats attached. You'll notice a drop off in June when I mess up my Google Analytics code, but even with that it averages over 2800 visits per month.

    >do you have any cart abandonment stats?

    No, Shopify does not provide this.

    >how do you calculate shipping or do you have some sort of plugin from the drop shippers to calculate just like they do?

    Shopify integrates directly with UPS. You sign up for an API key, enter it into Shopify and it calculates the rates for you.

    > So, just to clarify, the average monthly profit for Aug to Dec was $228?

    Correct. However, I made a few mistakes that I've already mentioned that will increase profits during the coming peak months - I shouldn't have upgraded to the high priced Shopify plan so that would save $35. I need to increase the price on the cheaper towels.

  20. Avatar for webgeekent
    Posted by:
    webgeekent (+4)
    Date:
    Fri, 09 Jan 2009 17:22:59 GMT

    so the drop shipper charge the same as you charge your clients for shipping. so they dont load the ups rates?

  21. Avatar for webgeekent
    Posted by:
    webgeekent (+4)
    Date:
    Fri, 09 Jan 2009 17:53:35 GMT

    have you tried adding adsense?

    the order numbers on your orders image are not consecutive, do you know why this is?

  22. Avatar for coolguyrob
    Posted by:
    coolguyrob (+8)
    Date:
    Fri, 09 Jan 2009 19:32:14 GMT

    >so the drop shipper charge the same as you charge your clients for shipping. so they dont load the ups rates?

    The dropshippers don't load the UPS rates. I actually load mine by 10% just to have a margin.

    >have you tried adding adsense?

    I haven't done any kind of on-site advertising to generate additional revenue. All revenue is through product sales.

    >the order numbers on your orders image are not consecutive, do you know why this is?

    That's interesting; I have to admit I've never noticed it before. It must have something to do with the way Shopify generates order numbers.

  23. Avatar for Alliance
    Posted by:
    Alliance (+3)
    Date:
    Fri, 09 Jan 2009 20:39:51 GMT

    How large is the customer list?

  24. Avatar for Pelican
    Posted by:
    Pelican (+6)
    Date:
    Fri, 09 Jan 2009 21:23:22 GMT

    do you have BIN price?

  25. Avatar for coolguyrob
    Posted by:
    coolguyrob (+8)
    Date:
    Fri, 09 Jan 2009 21:32:20 GMT

    > How large is the customer list?

    I have 169 orders in the system as of today, so the customer list is somewhere around that size.

    > do you have BIN price?

    Not yet, the site has only been for sale for 24 hours.

  26. Avatar for phjohnso
    Posted by:
    phjohnso (+7)
    Date:
    Fri, 09 Jan 2009 22:31:17 GMT

    adding adsense to the site would be stupid, the last thing you would want to do is make a few pennies and give your business away to someone else that may never come back.

  27. Avatar for Abbadox
    Posted by:
    Abbadox (+5)
    Date:
    Sat, 10 Jan 2009 00:41:55 GMT

    Please post or me any reserve price?.

  28. Avatar for coolguyrob
    Posted by:
    coolguyrob (+8)
    Date:
    Sat, 10 Jan 2009 02:16:17 GMT

    BIN added.

  29. Avatar for pap_itfc
    Posted by:
    pap_itfc (-15)
    Date:
    Sat, 10 Jan 2009 05:42:13 GMT

    PM sent.

  30. Avatar for Chris Mueller
    Posted by:
    Chris Mueller (+4)
    Date:
    Sat, 10 Jan 2009 22:43:18 GMT

    Can you tell me which towels sell the best, and approximate percentages of sales come from your top sellers? Do most of your sales come from the top 3 towels (for example), or is it fairly spread out? Thank you.

  31. Avatar for a_frenchswallow
    Posted by:
    a_frenchswallow (+3)
    Date:
    Sat, 10 Jan 2009 23:26:43 GMT

    August 1 - December 31
    5 months
    Revenue: $8483.52
    COGS: $6348.89
    Expenses: $890.56
    Profit: $1244.07 month average: $248.81

    Profits should go up during other months.
    If we estimated an increase in popular months and bump the average to $325 profit per month, the yearly profit goes up to $3,900.

  32. Avatar for coolguyrob
    Posted by:
    coolguyrob (+8)
    Date:
    Sun, 11 Jan 2009 01:19:57 GMT

    @Chris - I have the information about my top selling towel, but I'm not sure about the relevance to this auction. It sounds like a question you'd ask if you were going to build a competing website. Not trying to be confrontational, I just want to protect the future owner of the site.

    I can tell you that the top 3 most popular towels account for 48% of unit sales.

    @FrenchSwallow - As the site owner I am biased, but a standard "12 months of net" valuation ignores the long-standing high ranking in Google, the longevity of the site, the dropshipper relationships, the coming peak season, and the stability of the traffic over a long time period. Most would agree that this website is not the same as a proxy site or PLR article site making $250/month, so the valuation should reflect that.

    I have a private offer of $4,000 and I expect the website will go for quite a bit more than that.

  33. Avatar for coolguyrob
    Posted by:
    coolguyrob (+8)
    Date:
    Sun, 11 Jan 2009 13:33:47 GMT

    BIN lowered for quick sale.

  34. Avatar for Chris Mueller
    Posted by:
    Chris Mueller (+4)
    Date:
    Sun, 11 Jan 2009 18:39:15 GMT

    Rob,

    I was mainly asking because I really was hoping that if I purchased the site to limit the product line and hope to keep strong sales. Can you tell me approximately what you are spending on text links per month, and also approximately what your drop shippers charge?

    Chris

  35. Avatar for droptop35
    Posted by:
    droptop35 (+1)
    Date:
    Sun, 11 Jan 2009 20:14:27 GMT

    "adding adsense to the site would be stupid, the last thing you would want to do is make a few pennies and give your business away to someone else that may never come back."

    agreed. you would be stupid to put adsense on this site. why would you wanna make 10 cents from a click only to lose a $30 sale.....

  36. Avatar for fathead123
    Posted by:
    fathead123 (+3)
    Date:
    Mon, 12 Jan 2009 12:10:41 GMT

    how many towels on average do u sell a month?

  37. Avatar for coolguyrob
    Posted by:
    coolguyrob (+8)
    Date:
    Tue, 13 Jan 2009 02:42:40 GMT

    Site has been sold to a private party. Thanks to everyone for your participation.

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Site Details (claimed by seller)

Site access has been verified.

Established: 11 Jun 2005
Uniques (per month): 2,000
Page Views (per month): 8,770
Gross Revenue (per month): $1,700
- from Advertising Sales: No
- from Product or Service Sales: No
- from Affiliate Income: No
No profit is being claimed.

Content is not claimed to be unique
(placeholder, reused or re-purposed)

Design is not claimed to be unique
(template, reused or available elsewhere)

Seller Details

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coolguyrob

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