Ever Try to Sell An Established Website on Ebay?

Yes, before (around 2007) with no luck....

Tried this in 2009. Didn't sell. But I used a but it now price. Go with an auction starting at 99 cents and set a reserve. With really good sales page you have a good chance.

Thanks for the input. Just curious as I'm not a big fan of the $19 listing fee for Flippa. I've only tried selling an established website on there once though with no success. Figured I may give Ebay a try if I decide to sell a website again. It's less of a loss if the site doesn't sell.

You might want to try selling on here. Some people have had great luck.
Paleruby

This is a great idea! I should of thought of this myself

Personally, I think you should give it a try when eBay has a week of free-of-charge listing. Since the feedback on this thread is that websites for sale aren't a very hot niche on eBay, it would be a shame to waste your money on insertion fees.

Good Luck!

If you go to ebay.co.uk, you will undoubtedly see that almost every 'cookie-cutter' website is listed as an 'established website.'

This poses a few problems. Especially when you try to get your website noticed and try to sell it.

I had a fantastic site that I was trying to sell on eBay and hardly anyone was interested. Eventually one person bidded and won the auction.

I did state in my auction that there is a 48 hour period afterwards where I would be happy to give them all the information and send them all the files, details etc. At first the person didn't respond within 48 hours. 4 Days down the line, i received a vague email from the winner and then I requested his email address so that I can send all the information.

No response.

Eventually after 7 days, I was getting frustrated with the lack of communication and received his phone number through eBay, where I decided to contact him.

His 'wife' answered and after verifying where he is, she merely stated that he was busy washing the car and and would get back to me later that evening.

I waited. No call or anything.

Not even an email.

The next day I called back and politely explained that I needed to transfer the domain and site now as it was getting near the renewal date and I am unwilling to host it any further. She took my message and said he is busy with the car and that he will contact me.

A day later, I tried for the third time and then the wife got angry because I was calling there. All of a sudden her demeanor changed and she started saying 'How I think I am better than they are etc.'

I was like WTF!

>>>>Insane people<<<<

Then finally I received a call from the man himself... sounded in his late forties with trouble breathing properly. And was asked why I said that he bought a site from eBay. That this has caused him trouble now blah blah. (Well his wife asked me what it was about so I explained).

Anyway... eventually I got upset with his lack of response, respect and even the ability to sort things out apparently, so I told him in no uncertain terms my website is not for him. He then stated that he did not want it anymore because I am a dumb b****

I laughed and put the phone down.

Then seconds after his 'wife' calls me and say how I can treat them like that and she can't believe that he paid me over £500 for the website.

I was like ZOMG!

Do you know how much he paid for my website?

£10.

The irony in that.

You'd probably wonder why my site went for £10. Well that was the starting bid with no reserve.

After that experience, I vowed never to sell my sites on there again.

Flippa at this point in time is just a rip off.

I preferred Site point when I could sell my websites on there.

I did buy a site on Ebay once, and once only. But the odd thing: I was informed about the site sale through a community with a reputation, so I had some confidence in the purchase. I wouldn't necessarily buy a site directly through Ebay without similar intermediation to provide additional credibility.

how does one even calculate the value of a complete site? any links or guides? I have a complete site with a position 4 ranking on google for a great IM term and since I'm not a great IM'er handling the clients was too much of a pain in the butt for me...wonder what it would be worth.

There are a few things to bear in mind when selling a website on a general auction site like eBay (I'm from Flippa so read bias as you see fit but existing responses seem to support it!).

1. The buyers are less qualified - folk browsing for general merchandise that stumble onto your listing are not necessarily the types of buyers you want to sell to given the pre and post sale overhead ("tell me, whats this WordPress thing then?"!). While we may get a few of these every now and then on Flippa, it will be a lot less likely than elsewhere

2. Your listing will be for a generic product rather than a website - Flippa integrates with a number of third party services to provide buyers with instant information about your site across SEO performance, traffic, whois and content - a great example is the verified Google Analytics. While you might be able to manually add this information on eBay, it will not carry the same level of authority as it does on a dedicated website marketplace like Flippa where we live and breathe website sales.

3. No website-related search refinement - Users trying to find your site on eBay are limited to search refinements such as condition (new or used), free shipping, distance which are irrelevant for established websites. While we are always looking to improve our own search, buyers on Flippa today can already refine by domains/websites, pagerank/alexarank, traffic, revenue, monetization method and TLD. Not having these refinements means you are one of many auctions living in the generic Internet Businesses & Websites bucket alongside listings for general backlink/SEO services and website kits.

If your sites have zero traffic, zero revenue with no original content or design on a garbled domain name, then eBay might be a good place to sell. If your site is quality and you're looking to get a good price for it, then you cannot really go past a dedicated website marketplace like Flippa.

I've tried twice before with no success. In the first instance, the guy I outsourced the site development to decided to monopolize on my similar domains and create a few exact copies of the site to sell on the UK eBay. That's when I learned about contracts! ;-)

Andrew also pointed out some wonderful points in his informative post; thanks, Andrew!

back in 2007 I bought a website off ebay.

Biggest mistake of my life.... cost $2700 what a scam that I bought into.

Buyer beware on there.

Ive used both and have had zero luck in selling a real, established site on ebay. When I say established, I mean an actual, verifiable, income producing site.

I have sold some other sites on Ebay that werny producing any income. Go figure.

When I sell an established site now, it goes on flippa. I usually can get 8x the monthly income for it. Used to be 10x or more but times have cahnged a bit.

Yea, and if it even does sell, it won't go for nearly as much as on Flippa. I describe Flippa as the 'ebay for websites'.

I listed a forum I own on there for $3,000. I just kind of let it roll and relist for *thinks* geez, probably about 4 months before someone shot me an email for statistics on the site. I actually wasn't really trying to sell it though but I found it intriguing that someone was interested.

You guys are right though, the majority of the sites I've seen on there are turnkey mass produced crap. Most of the people on there sell them for really low, which would make selling a real established website on there difficult since most of the buyers on Ebay are there to look for a bargain. Though I have come across a seller before that was doing pretty good selling simple websites (non-established) on there for $70 a pop.

I probably won't give it a try any time soon. Was just curious if anyone else was doing it.