Site Flippers - Have any luck lately selling startup sites on Flippa?

There is no doubt the bottom has fallen out on startups but they're still not dead. Yes, they are more difficult to sell (because there is more of them) and yes, they don't fetch as much as they used to, but those with value are still selling.

I analyzed the startup market on Flippa and wrote a blog post with my findings. You can read it here:
The Average Sales Price of a Startup Website? $130

The average price for startups right now is about $130. That's down considerably from a few months ago.

Travis

Startup flipping was dead months ago. People want sites with proven traffic and revenue now.

Yeah I made some nice quick bucks back a few months ago but have also noticed a distinct drop off in prices. As "Biggy Fat" said they want traffic and earnings now more and more. Just means you gotta spend a little more time getting them monetized and a few backlinks going to them and your sale price will get better.

Generally, avoiding starter sites is a safer strategy but like Travis said, those with 'value' are still selling and value is in the 'eye of the beholder. Take a look at these two seller profiles

tristlss Website Sale Statistics | Provided by Flipfilter.com

and

sam787 Website Sale Statistics | Provided by Flipfilter.com

They both sell a LOT of starter sites on Flippa averaging 24 and 18 per month between them but their strategies are quite different.

Seller 1 - Tristlss seems to sell many traditional zero revenue sites at an average of $70. They are all carbon copies of each other (but very good looking ones ) so I'm assuming the seller has centralised the creation and automated the process. Whilst they may not be creating something significantly valuable, it will probably take no more than 30 minutes IF the process has been scripted and setup properly. This nets the seller $864 gross; not enough to retire on but certainly enough to justify the 10 - 15 hours of work per week they probably do.

Seller 2 - Sam787 - sells less in terms of volume but more in terms of revenue grossing $7,800 in the last 30 days. His / her strategy is the same except they use a directory / bookmarking script, tweek the design and (sue me if I'm wrong) upload the data from a spreadsheet to populate the site. They claim revenue of $25 pm but if you read the listing you'll see this is "expected revenue" and the site is essentially a starter site with traffic and
PR2.

Call me sceptical, but I think seller 2 has mis-sold his sites and there will be a lot of p!ssed of buyers wondering what just happened. The clue is in the seller's profile photo - $100 says that's clip art

I hope this helps

Justin

Unique ClickBank ready products and sites work pretty well and you can easily make $500+ on those, but you shouldn't wait for the buyers to find your listing. Instead, you should find the buyers and go to them and let them know about your listing

Using this works pretty well for me.

Here's a little something I discovered: When selling CB ready sites with some revenue background you're better off with a brand new account.
Then they'll look as if you were doing this business and after awhile came to sell it.
If you were to use the same account through which you've sold more similar types of sites they'll find it suspicious. The #1 question that I get: "Why are you selling?"

So they really look you up and analyze you before they buy from you and if they see you're just a regular site flipper they won't like you very much.

Interesting. I haven't began using this business model yet, but I have ben working on a way to flip domains which involves creating sites. I will check all of this out myself and post my own results on my site and in the forum before writing a special report. Thank you, this gives me something to research for future online income earners.

a lot of lifestyle and revolution theme are listed at flippa for start up site.....from my observation,the start up can be sold at higher price if the seller give premium plugin like wp-robot and wp-unique...

I still sell a lot of start up sites, although 80% of the ones I sell don't even reach flippa. Most of them I can sell to my list which consists of earlier start up site buyers or people who missed out on a site I build before. The ones I have to put on flippa stil sell, but usually not during the auction, actually my last two flippa auctions ended unsuccessful, but once the auction ended I got a message from someone asking me if I would be willing to sell the sites for the reserve I had set (which wasn't met during the auction). Sold those sites and moved on.

Leslie

There's no denying that sales of startups have slowed considerably over the last few months, but that doesn't mean there is no profit to be made. I personally don't sell startup sites anymore but a number of people I deal with day-to-day do, and still do fine.

One thing to remember is that just going by the final sales price is VERY misleading as to how much profit someone made. If you sell startup sites and only ever make the average $130 per site and nothing more out of that client then you are doing something very wrong.

Upselling is 100% essential and will add a lot to your bottom line. Here's an article I wrote a few weeks ago about being profitable selling startups: Playing Devil's Advocate: How to be Profitable Flipping Turnkey Sites - Blogs - "Discussion Around The Buying And Selling Of Internet Businesses And Websites"

There's obviously a lot more to it than that, but it really isn't very hard. If you can't figure out how to make money even if you give away sites for free/tiny profit, then you shouldn't be working in IM.

One of my favourite Flippa sellers always collects a list with every auction, so even if he doesn't sell the site or sells it at a loss he will have gained XX new subscribers to his list where he promotes courses etc.

Good addition to your business model if you sell start up sites or flip sites for profit!

I've been flipping websites since 2006 and I think I have to clear the air up for everyone here.

I've a pretty massive website buyers' list (some of you might be in it) and I always run surveys and ask them what they want so my company could actually produce a site that they actually want...

In one of the surveys I did (I can't remember when. Probably 8 months ago?), I asked, "Do you still buy brand new websites on Flippa?"

43% answered no

19 % answered yes.

38% answered im not sure.

After some more surveys, I realized that my customers, clients and buyers are telling me that most of the sites on Flippa are junk sites.

These are the sites that are made with the sole intention of selling it to the buyer and then it's OVER.

Most of these sites only have the look and some extra "features" that can be appealing but it has no monetization value -- hence, no reason for someone to buy that website.

The key is "monetization value".

Can your buyers make money with the sites you sell to them?

If yes, then you're going to make good money in site flipping.

If not, you're just like almost 60% of the sellers on Flippa -- "hoping" that their websites will sell.

Startup websites do still sell well (even though I have to admit that I no longer sell startup websites because it's not worth my time anymore) if you have a strong buyers' list.

There are still people out there looking to buy from you IF you can prove to them from your first website sale that your website actually has "monetization value".

Try to put yourself on the buyers' shoes.

Will you buy that website if you're the buyer?

Will your spouse purcahse it?

Will your son/daughter purchase it?

If yes, then you have a good reason to flip that website.

If no, you still have homework to do.



Cheers
Desmond

I would stay away from Ebay as the value, in my opinion is not worth it.

Start-up website still sells depending on the content you have on the site

I purchased my first site on Flippa a while back as a way to start learning. i had been out of internet marketing and ecommerce for a number of years so I purchased a couple of sites to learn from (established, profitable with traffic and also a new one).

My strategy worked well and it was a way to get back up to speed quickly. I still browse Flippa regularly as getting an established site with traffic is always an attractive thought as you battle for ranking and traffic on your existing site(s).

But, as been pointed out here, a lot of what is for sale is pretty poor quality. Worse yet there is a good deal of fraud (I have researched many sites only to challenge the owners stats and get a retraction or restatement or ignored). Sites that claim stats that aren't true mostly. Claiming unique visits per day that are actually page views, overstating keyword ranking, overstating sales. Often these are on very new sites.

That said there is a lot of good quality too. But i think (this is my assumption, no facts to back it) the poor quality and fraud has turned off a lot of buyers and that is why you see the slow down in sales. Word spreads across the web like wildfire and people are more cautious and less trusting.

And as marketers we all know that trust is the basis of sales.

Hey, none what so ever. I was a member since before they became flippa and not sure why this is. Perhaps the slow down in our recovery. Folks, our economy is real slow now. Hard to move products or services. The bar has risen. People want results that can be proven.

A lot of stories and theories are presented about selling startup sites on Flippa. Rather than believing the legends, I decided to focus on facts.

I collected information on every Flippa auction for the last 4 years. Over 64,000 of them! It will take a while to go through all of the data, but some interesting information is already surfacing. Here is what the data has revealed so far:

Startup auction are very popular. Out of the 64,000 auctions, 33,000 of them were for startup sites. My definition of a startup site is: no traffic and no revenue.

When you summarize the startup auction data by year, some interesting trends emerge:
2007 - 42% sold - $1,965 per site - 3,776 sites sold
2008 - 43% sold - $ 801 per site - 4,041 sites sold
2009 - 51% sold - $ 226 per site - 3,277 sites sold
2010 - 64% sold - $ 163 per site - 3,967 sites sold
The percentage of startup sites sold increased every year. However, the average price paid for startup sites dropped like a stone! So, there is some truth of the rumors that the "bottom dropped out" of the market for startup sites. Startup sites do not bring in the prices that they once did.

It is interesting to note that the market for startup sites continues to be strong. The percentage of sites sold goes up every year. The quantity of sites sold is also consistently high. Approximately eleven startup sites are sold every day. There is a market.

The trick is to figure out how to sell the sites consistently and profitably. My current analysis focuses on the sellers. I want to learn who is effective and who is not. An initial review shows that there are a few startup site sellers that are winning the game. I see some sellers who are selling 80% of their sites for prices that are much higher than the averages. The trick is to identify them and reverse-engineer their systems.

It will be fun to look into the data more. Let me know what you are curious about. Maybe I can run a few extra analyses and share the results.

Factual data trumps rumour every time!

Very informative, thanks

Is Flippa the only place to sell websites? or is it because it is the safest their?

You can give it a try and see if you can sell something.
It doesn't cost nothing.
Good luck!