A Company Wants to buy one of my sites

[Metro123]

Hi, I need some advice and direction. I received a comment on one of my sites from a company that they are interested in purchasing it.

What do I do?
What should I be aware of to make sure this isn't a scam?
How do I know what's fair price?

Do I need an attorney?

I really need some help with this!!

Thanks in advance

[Jacqueline Smith]

Your question isn't "off topic". You'll probably get a good response in the general forum....there are a lot of warriors there who know a lot about site flipping.

Good Luck!

[Bill Farnham]

Here's a good way to tell if it's a scam...

If they want you to get your site appraised...run.

[TimPhelan]

Unless the site is making thousands a month, you shouldn't need an attorney.

How much does it make a month? How much traffic does it get? Is traffic increasing? What niche is the site in? Is the domain alone worth worth money without the website? Are you building a list? There's a lot a ways to try to set the value of a website. Afterall, youtube wasn't making any money and sold for over a $billion.

A good source to use when buying or selling websites is escrow.com. However, if the site is small I wouldn't use them because of the expensive fees.

Tim

[seasoned]

Originally Posted by Bill Farnham

Here's a good way to tell if it's a scam...

If they want you to get your site appraised...run.

Good advice, ESPECIALLY since it is impossible to appraise the whole site without a lot of real input from you. They might want to now what areas you cover, relationships you have, advertising you have done and are doing, expenses, income, etc.... HECK, appraising a domain name is also WAY too subjective.

The question is what is it worth to them and how much are they REALLY willing to pay. If you accept their first offer, they shouldn't need ANYTHING from you.

Steve

[derekwong28]

If you get them to pay by escrow, then the transaction will be safe. Because escrow will take responsibility if they used fraudulently obtained funds.

[garyv]

I agree w/ derek. Escrow.com specializes in the sell of websites. They have measures in place to make sure the necessary transfers take place. I've sold several high priced domains using them. I wouldn't even consider the sale if the buyer didn't agree to escrow.

[bigbrian]

Escrow.com is the safest way to go and the only way I would ever do it. I have sold half a dozen websites in the $xx,xxx range and always used Escrow.com. The process is straightforward and provides the highest level of protection.

The only other way I would accept money for a website is a bank wire and/or western union. Anything else such as a check, cashiers check, etc. is risky and I wouldn't recommend it.

If they are not willing to use Escrow.com as the medium to handle the transaction don't bother wasting anymore of your time - move on.

Brian

[TimPhelan]

I agree, but if ther buyer is some dude named John Reese and he instantly sends over a check for $30,000, then it's good. I should have taken a photo of that one. I also had National Lampoon buy a site of mine from sitepoint. It was total surprise, but once I saw their paypal id I felt very comfortable with them buying the site.

I also had someone buy a site that was a blog search engine that had it's own spiders. It was connected to a few of the top ping sites which made it valueable, but once they bought it they just used it as blog which so far has just one post. Weird. They paid close to $1000 for this site, which was a great bargain, but didn't use it for what it's value really was!

Originally Posted by bigbrian

Escrow.com is the safest way to go and the only way I would ever do it. I have sold half a dozen websites in the ,xxx range and always used Escrow.com. The process is straightforward and provides the highest level of protection.

The only other way I would accept money for a website is a bank wire and/or western union. Anything else such as a check, cashiers check, etc. is risky and I wouldn't recommend it.

If they are not willing to use Escrow.com as the medium to handle the transaction don't bother wasting anymore of your time - move on.

Brian

[bigbrian]

Originally Posted by TimPhelan

I also had someone buy a site that was a blog search engine that had it's own spiders. It was connected to a few of the top ping sites which made it valueable, but once they bought it they just used it as blog which so far has just one post. Weird. They paid close to $1000 for this site, which was a great bargain, but didn't use it for what it's value really was!

It's always interesting what people do with the site once they buy it. I sold one of my sites for $33,000 and the guy had no clue about the product (it was a virtual product in a very specific niche), how the product worked, how to support it, or anything of the sort. I almost felt like telling him "man you have no idea what you are getting into" but I just made the sell and he was so eager to buy it I kept thinking "this guy is just completely nuts."

Then I went and sold another site (same niche/product type) and it was sold for $18,000 (younger site with less revenue to show) and this guy was pretty savvy but again he didn't know the niche at all. Well I bumped into him again down the line and apparently he took the site and ended up making a killing on it - apparently he ramped up $56k in revenue over the course of 3 months. He definitely got his pennies worth on that deal.

But yeh, just like you say... It's so weird with what people do with the sites once you sell them. Some people run with them and other people sit on them.

Brian

[Metro123]

Wow, thanks for all your help. This may have not been the right place, but I just got info that will definitely steer me in the right direction. I have some other questions, but I'm going over to the general forum.

Thanks everyone.