Case Study: Why honesty is the best policy when you sell a website

Sold: $17,777

Bidders: 11

Views: 7,368

Watchers: 77

The Success Story

When Patrick needed to quickly turn an asset into cash, he decided to sell a website he had been working on, Reorder-checks.net, on Flippa. “This was my first consistently profitable site. It was exciting to build, and its revenue was up to around $2000 a month. Up until October, I had no intention of selling, but a looming five-figure debt came due and I needed the cash as soon as possible.”

Patrick was a first-time website seller, and he had some apprehensions early in the selling process. “I’ll be honest, the sales process was very scary at first. I had people coming out of the woodwork telling me not to trust anyone, and that I was asking way too much. I think it was obvious that I was new to the process, and there were some people that wanted to take advantage of that.”

The Journey

Though Patrick was apprehensive during the first days of the auction, he soon found a community of buyers who were eager to guide him through the sales process. “This was probably one of my most rewarding experiences. I ended up meeting a buyer who gave me a ton of good advice on buying and selling websites, and another buyer chatted with me on Skype.”

As Patrick soon learned, honesty pays off when it comes to selling a site. “If I could make any recommendation to future sellers, I would tell them to be transparent. Even if you have to tell potential buyers that sales have dropped off in the last few months, or that changes to Google’s ranking algorithm have hurt your traffic, honesty is the best policy.” Some buyers requested additional information before their bid, which resulted in Patrick spending hours compiling data for them.

It all paid off in the end when one buyer purchased the site for Patrick’s Buy It Now price, eight hours before the end of the sale. At that point, bids were running around $5000 under his BIN price.

Their Satisfaction

The sales process continued smoothly after the auction’s end. “We used Escrow.com to transfer money and ownership, and I’ve since put the buyer in contact with a number of connections I made in the industry while initially building the site. I also built him a guide for the site, and made recommendations for the future of the site. I think he’s going to do an excellent job with the site, and should turn a positive ROI in the near future.”

This wasn’t the end of Patrick’s website building adventures. Indeed, he says, “Thanks to Flippa I was able to sell a website, take care of the debt, and keep building sites. I feel very lucky to have had this opportunity.”

So what’s next? “I am currently working on a few different review sites. I’m spending quite a bit more on quality content production. I think this makes a big difference in the long term potential for the website. I am also running a couple of services for website owners, including LinkFool.com, a high quality backlink service, and my new project, FanFake.com, is launching soon.

Would he consider selling any of his other websites on Flippa? “I don’t plan on selling all my sites, but having the option of using Flippa if I do want to offload a few is excellent! Now that I’ve completed a successful transaction, I would highly recommend Flippa to everyone. It’s a great community with tons of opportunity. Follow the rules, be honest, and you’re sure to succeed.”

Thinking of selling?

Get a free online business valuation today 

Or get in touch with a Flippa Account Manager at [email protected]