flippa question/ is it easy flipping websites

13 years ago

I think you just have to get good at creating something that people like. Once you hit on something, it can carry you for a while, but you have to find something that makes you different and more worthwhile than the others.

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Pradeep Bhagwat 13 years ago

I have put one of my best, well ranked (first page on Google), traffic getting, money making website at Flippa but I did not got desired bid. My auction ended in loss of money and time! I have worked hard to create sells page, created video 'Why buy my website', attached analytics and sells data etc. But I can not sell website. It was my first experience of selling website and I take this failure as mine. My websites niche might not appealing to others as it is in rare niche! My website is not based on make money subject. I think this is the reason for my failure. If you have money in your pocket then you can take risk again and again and one day you can get success. I will try it later.

- Pradeep
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nest28

13 years ago

Originally Posted by dvduval

I think you just have to get good at creating something that people like. Once you hit on something, it can carry you for a while, but you have to find something that makes you different and more worthwhile than the others.

yes you are def right, but if you could just see how these websites look and the fact that they were brand new domains with no traffic, just seems crazy that people would pay 300 for such a site.

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cashcow

13 years ago

I havent flipped a site in almost a year, but I don't think it's gotten any easier especially for the newer sites that aren't earning.

While it may look like sites are selling regularly for $80 to $300, you have to really look at the big picture - not just the sold sites but all the ones that don't sell. If you take a look at the market over a couple of weeks you will see that only a small percentage of the new sites actually sell the first time listed.

Sometimes you have to list them 3 or 4 times before they sell and at $20 a pop it really eats into your profit.

What you really need to do is figure in your cost per site - domain name, graphics, content plus the listing fee plus the sales fee and then determine what profit you can realistically expect per site.

So, lets say you pay $10 for a domain name + $10 for various graphics + $50 for content + $20 for listing fee - that's $90 you have into each site and that doesn't even include being paid for your time.

If you are going to be getting backlinks to the site, you also need to figure in the cost of those or at least the cost of your time to get them.

Also, don't forget customer support - most brand new sites sell to newbies so there can be a lot of hand holding and question answering that takes up your time.

Is it worth it? Depends, only you can answer that depending on your costs and what you ultimately want to earn for your troubles.

Is it easy? No, I wouldn't say it is easy at all. Most people think that you can just build a site and list it and then money appears in your account but the reality is that there is a whole lot more on the back end than meets the eye.

Lee

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nest28

13 years ago

Originally Posted by cashcow

I havent flipped a site in almost a year, but I don't think it's gotten any easier especially for the newer sites that aren't earning.

While it may look like sites are selling regularly for $80 to $300, you have to really look at the big picture - not just the sold sites but all the ones that don't sell. If you take a look at the market over a couple of weeks you will see that only a small percentage of the new sites actually sell the first time listed.

Sometimes you have to list them 3 or 4 times before they sell and at $20 a pop it really eats into your profit.

What you really need to do is figure in your cost per site - domain name, graphics, content plus the listing fee plus the sales fee and then determine what profit you can realistically expect per site.

So, lets say you pay $10 for a domain name + $10 for various graphics + $50 for content + $20 for listing fee - that's $90 you have into each site and that doesn't even include being paid for your time.

If you are going to be getting backlinks to the site, you also need to figure in the cost of those or at least the cost of your time to get them.

Also, don't forget customer support - most brand new sites sell to newbies so there can be a lot of hand holding and question answering that takes up your time.

Is it worth it? Depends, only you can answer that depending on your costs and what you ultimately want to earn for your troubles.

Is it easy? No, I wouldn't say it is easy at all. Most people think that you can just build a site and list it and then money appears in your account but the reality is that there is a whole lot more on the back end than meets the eye.

Lee

i thought it was more to it than meets the eye, thank you for all the info, i was planning on just downloading free blog template and edit them to suite the theme of the site and just post them...i saw one guy use amazon product info as his content and his site was just a free template ...it sold for 100

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cashcow

13 years ago

Originally Posted by nest28

i thought it was more to it than meets the eye, thank you for all the info, i was planning on just downloading free blog template and edit them to suite the theme of the site and just post them...i saw one guy use amazon product info as his content and his site was just a free template ...it sold for 100

You are smart to realize that. Now, check out the other auctions from this same seller and see how many sites he sells, what they sell for and how many times he has to relist them to sell them and you will have a good idea of whether or not the model is worth it for you.

Lee

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paulie888

13 years ago

Originally Posted by nest28

i thought it was more to it than meets the eye, thank you for all the info, i was planning on just downloading free blog template and edit them to suite the theme of the site and just post them...i saw one guy use amazon product info as his content and his site was just a free template ...it sold for 100

This may be misleading to the untrained eye, but with so many of these "cookie cutter" websites flooding Flippa these days, you can almost be certain that it is going to be a numbers game. Out of every 10 of these "template" websites that you put up, maybe only 2 or 3 will sell (if even that). Remember that you pay at least $20 for each listing (not including the additional listing options/features and also the 5% success fee that is required at the end of each successful auction), so you can see how if you're selling sites at $200 or below you may only be breaking even (or even losing money) when you take into account all the fees you've paid.

Paul

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nest28

13 years ago

Originally Posted by cashcow

You are smart to realize that. Now, check out the other auctions from this same seller and see how many sites he sells, what they sell for and how many times he has to relist them to sell them and you will have a good idea of whether or not the model is worth it for you.

Lee

i think i change my mind lol

Originally Posted by paulie888

This may be misleading to the untrained eye, but with so many of these "cookie cutter" websites flooding Flippa these days, you can almost be certain that it is going to be a numbers game. Out of every 10 of these "template" websites that you put up, maybe only 2 or 3 will sell (if even that). Remember that you pay at least $20 for each listing (not including the additional listing options/features and also the 5% success fee that is required at the end of each successful auction), so you can see how if you're selling sites at $200 or below you may only be breaking even (or even losing money) when you take into account all the fees you've paid.

Paul

i didn't know there was a 20 dollar listing fee i did know about the success fee tho, normally i do way more research than i did today but i'm glad for the great advice from you and all the other warriors

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paulie888

13 years ago

Originally Posted by nest28

i didn't know there was a 20 dollar listing fee i did know about the success fee tho, normally i do way more research than i did today but i'm glad for the great advice from you and all the other warriors

Yes, not only is that the minimum you have to pay to list something, there are additional listing options which can easily double your listing fee to $40 or more.

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Amy Carczak

13 years ago

Get a website that actually makes some
money on its own and people will pay top
dollar for it.

Therer are too many sites that "look good"
but earn no money for the owner ... that is a
"crappy" site in my mind.

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nest28

13 years ago

Originally Posted by Amy Carczak

Get a website that actually makes some
money on its own and people will pay top
dollar for it.

Therer are too many sites that "look good"
but earn no money for the owner ... that is a
"crappy" site in my mind.

yea i have a exact match domain with adsense that makes a whopping 10 dollars a month was thinking about selling that one.

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sbucciarel

Banned 13 years ago

Originally Posted by nest28

i was on flippa earlier because i had been looking into flipping websites it seem like a lot of sites with standard wordpress themes and no traffic in niches that would be hard to rank for were being sold for as much as 300 and at least 80 on average.

i just want to know is it really that easy to sell crappy sites and make big money.

p.s. not saying i would sell crap... if i sold any websites i make sure they at least have backlinks and are in a niche that you can rank for soon.

Listing a site and paying the listing fee and actually selling it are two different things. If it sells for $80, you've made a whole $60, provided you did not have any other expense. Many people try to dump crap sites on Flippa. Some are successful, many are not.

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Pragun

13 years ago

To be completely honest with you, the flipping market isn't as happy a place as it used to be about an year back.
The amount of effort that you need to put in to build a website that'd sell for around 300 bucks would be much better invested if you spend that much time developing a website for yourself. Or maybe even doing some freelance work.

Either way, you'll make more money/hour as compared to flipping.

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Flipfilter

13 years ago

Consistent Sellers tend to take two approaches with Flippa.

On the one hand, some seller will spend at least 6 months creating a 'decent' site on an aged domain that earns a decent revenue. They will sell after a period of time and repeat the process.

On the other hand, some sellers specialise in starter sites - quick sites that have no traffic or revenue but follow a consistent formula. Take a look at this seller

SmartBusiness Website Sale Statistics | Provided by Flipfilter.com

They've managed to shift 80 sites in the last 60 days to earn $23K. They also have an impressive clearance rate of 95%, with each site getting an average of 9 bids. In my opinion, they clearly know this side of the market.

The moral of the story is, if you decide to sell starter sites, work out what the successful sellers are doing and copy their formula, otherwise find another strategy that works for you.

Best of luck

Justin

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hastla

13 years ago

I will get into the flipping business these days as I have a lot of unused domains and new made projects. I think I have to grow up my knowledge with selling websites, but I hope to get some ideas how to get more out of the sale. So I setup a post here, maybe some of this post has a few impotant ideas for me.

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Dan C. Rinnert

13 years ago

I don't understand how people make money flipping websites.

Every time I've flipped a website, people complain they need to view it in a mirror to read it and no one wants to buy something like that.

But, hey, I'm not stupid. I figured I must be flipping them wrong, so I flipped them the other way.

Then people complained they had to turn over their monitors to read them. People with laptops were the biggest complainers.

I guess I must not be marketing to the right crowd.

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Diana Lane

13 years ago

Originally Posted by Dan C. Rinnert

I don't understand how people make money flipping websites.

Every time I've flipped a website, people complain they need to view it in a mirror to read it and no one wants to buy something like that.

But, hey, I'm not stupid. I figured I must be flipping them wrong, so I flipped them the other way.

Then people complained they had to turn over their monitors to read them. People with laptops were the biggest complainers.

I guess I must not be marketing to the right crowd.

I think Sitepoint is an Australian company. Your mistake lies in a failure to realise that what looks 'flipped' in much of the rest of the world just looks 'upright' on Sitepoint - flip your sites back to a more conventional position for Sitepoint and watch them fly.

Or you can just list them on eBay in any orientation you like as long as you're prepared to include a ton of irrelevant bonuses (which must include your Granny and an industrial arc welder) and are willing to accept a final price of no greater than $9.

Site flipping ain't what it used to be.

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sbucciarel

Banned 13 years ago

Originally Posted by nest28

i just want to know is it really that easy to sell crappy sites and make big money.

Actually, this is the biggest problem with Flippa now. You can go to the expense and trouble of listing crap sites, but they aren't selling like hot cakes and the crap site sellers aren't making a huge profit with the high listing fees. They often have to relist the crap and pay yet another fee.

I used to both buy and sell a lot on Flippa. These days it's difficult to find something worth the money to buy and I do better selling sites on WF than Flippa.

You look at the listings and it's mostly junk. The same old snake oil salesmen buying crap from Tradebit for $5 and listing it on Flippa for $197, just hoping to snag those newbies who don't know how to research what they're buying first.

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tpw

13 years ago

Dan: I thought this was business. What do birds have to do with this story?

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Dan C. Rinnert 13 years ago

Originally Posted by tpw

Dan: I thought this was business. What do birds have to do with this story?

Oh, is that the kind of flipping that brings in the bucks?
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flippa question/ is it easy flipping websites

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