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Other people are losing big on Flippa

by Adie
16 replies
While some people (like me) are making decent amount with Flippa, some are losing big. I stumbled into a closed auction and the site have been listed 16 times and still not sold. The owner have shelled out $304 for normal listing only (I don't know if he/she purchased some addons). Selling site on Flippa is not always profitable as other may think.. It requires experience, timing, and a little bit of luck....
#big #flippa #losing #people
  • Profile picture of the author Jake Gray
    Originally Posted by Adie View Post

    While some people (like me) are making decent amount with Flippa, some are losing big. I stumbled into a closed auction and the site have been listed 16 times and still not sold. The owner have shelled out $304 for normal listing only (I don't know if he/she purchased some addons). Selling site on Flippa is not always profitable as other may think.. It requires experience, timing, and a little bit of luck....
    Of course.

    This business is nothing but risk. Nothing guarantees you someone will buy your website(s).
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    • Profile picture of the author Torreylee
      I'm considering selling a 18 month old, 120 page legal site(homepage PR2) that gets 10,000 UV's per month. What would be the best place to market it? I've never been into selling my sites before. I had heard of Flippa before but was already sketchy about it even before I read this post, now I'm not even going to consider them.
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      • Profile picture of the author Adie
        Originally Posted by Torreylee View Post

        I'm considering selling a 18 month old, 120 page legal site(homepage PR2) that gets 10,000 UV's per month. What would be the best place to market it? I've never been into selling my sites before. I had heard of Flippa before but was already sketchy about it even before I read this post, now I'm not even going to consider them.
        I sold more than a dozen of websites there and failed only twice for first list (sold on second listing).

        How about your site's monthly earning?
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        • Profile picture of the author Piper Anderson
          Flippa is definitely the best place to sell websites. I've sold over 100 there in the past year and a half, and only 3 did not sell on the first try. Of the three that didn't sell, two sold later on a second listing and one sold through a private offer I made to the highest bidder (that site had bids, but hadn't reached the reserve price when the auction ended). I get my BIN 90% of the time, as well.

          I suggest going to Flippa and seeing what kinds of sites are selling for decent prices, looking at the sales letters, seeing who sells a large number of sites consistently, and adopting their strategy and approach, without copying their sales letter outright, of course. You can learn a lot about how to list a successful auction there by doing a little research into what is already selling, who is selling it, and how they are selling it. It's very enlightening, and will help your own sales on Flippa a LOT.
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      • Profile picture of the author alco
        Originally Posted by Torreylee View Post

        I'm considering selling a 18 month old, 120 page legal site(homepage PR2) that gets 10,000 UV's per month. What would be the best place to market it? I've never been into selling my sites before. I had heard of Flippa before but was already sketchy about it even before I read this post, now I'm not even going to consider them.
        I think that is a good call. If you going to be honest and upfront with earnings the money you will make is not worthwhile. There is exceptions but they are in the minority. Most sites seem to sell for 6 x monthly earnings and many even less. If so why not just keep the sites and earn more over the course of the year.
        There are many starter sites that just are not doing it. What is the point setting up a decent wordpress blog and selling for $50. The profit on that is $20 and is not worthwhile. If people sold sites a year ago, they would have made money but not now. The only people who are laughing all the way to the bank is Flippa themselves.
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  • Profile picture of the author AndrewAU
    Originally Posted by Adie View Post

    It requires experience, timing, and a little bit of luck....
    While experience, timing and luck can be helpful, be assured they are not prerequisites for a successful sale on Flippa. I'd argue the sites that don't sell almost always fall into one of two buckets (and let's not forget that Flippa clearance rate is the best out there!) .

    The first is that the price expectation is beyond what the market will pay. This is understandable as sellers see what may have sold historically and also know how much time/effort they may have put into a given websites. This does not necessarily translate into buyer value. The majority of sites that do not sell first time but are listed with a more modest reserve typically end with a successful sale. Bear in mind, the lower the market demand for your website due to any range of factors (eg too generic/too niche/too young etc), the lower the final price is likely to be.

    The second reason a site may not sell is due to the way it has been marketed, everything from listing description, attachments, responses to public comments etc. Someone who has taken the time to read the How to sell section as well as selling website blog posts and applied this to their listing typically result in a sale (based on the aforementioned price point being set realistically of course!). There are a number of examples where a site has sold on its metrics alone (eg revenue, traffic, PageRank) but I'd argue these guys may have hit a higher price if they'd spent more time on their description.

    Check out the Flippa ended-sold and ended-unsold pages to see examples of this in action.
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  • Profile picture of the author Adie
    7 of 10 websites listed on Flippa are autoblogs and this is a sad thing...
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    • Profile picture of the author AndrewAU
      Originally Posted by Adie View Post

      7 of 10 websites listed on Flippa are autoblogs and this is a sad thing...
      Any chance you can outline how you reached this figure? Search for open listings with autoblogs or browsing listings tagged as autoblogs results in fewer than 50 listings (ie less than 5%). Even a broader auto-pilot style search doesn't really increase this.

      Your stat may have been more true 18 or so months ago but the marketplace has arguably matured since then ...
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      • Profile picture of the author Adie
        Originally Posted by AndrewAU View Post

        Any chance you can outline how you reached this figure? Search for open listings with autoblogs or browsing listings tagged as autoblogs results in fewer than 50 listings (ie less than 5%). Even a broader auto-pilot style search doesn't really increase this.

        Your stat may have been more true 18 or so months ago but the marketplace has arguably matured since then ...
        Give me couple of minutes to provide more info........
        I think we're both wrong. You have 5% and I have 70% After checking 1 page of 30 listings, I found 12 autoblogs so that makes 40%

        Thanks for some dramatic changes anyway...
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    • Profile picture of the author Sheryl Polomka
      Originally Posted by Adie View Post

      7 of 10 websites listed on Flippa are autoblogs and this is a sad thing...
      Are people still creating autoblogs and selling them since the new Google change or is everyone just trying to flog them off now because of the new change?
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      • Profile picture of the author Adie
        Originally Posted by Sheryl Polomka View Post

        Are people still creating autoblogs and selling them since the new Google change or is everyone just trying to flog them off now because of the new change?
        yes sheryl, pls take a look back at my post above you. i just checked.
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  • Profile picture of the author Owen Smith
    Flippa works fine for me, although it does seem to be getting harder to sell sites and the profit margins are lowering.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mike McAleer
    Yea I agree mine is up for 2nd time now.
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  • Profile picture of the author steveo
    Originally Posted by Adie View Post

    While some people (like me) are making decent amount with Flippa, some are losing big. I stumbled into a closed auction and the site have been listed 16 times and still not sold. The owner have shelled out $304 for normal listing only (I don't know if he/she purchased some addons). Selling site on Flippa is not always profitable as other may think.. It requires experience, timing, and a little bit of luck....
    Does anyone have any tips for how to avoid wasting time and money for a long 16x listing like this? Clearly something had to be wrong with the site.
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    • Profile picture of the author Adie
      Originally Posted by steveo View Post

      Does anyone have any tips for how to avoid wasting time and money for a long 16x listing like this? Clearly something had to be wrong with the site.
      Well I think he was so desparate to sell his site, I have no idea really... But I can afford losing such amount.. maybe I could lower my price, or make some improvements before listing it again...
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  • Profile picture of the author Black Hat Cat
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    Originally Posted by Adie View Post

    While some people (like me) are making decent amount with Flippa, some are losing big. I stumbled into a closed auction and the site have been listed 16 times and still not sold. The owner have shelled out $304 for normal listing only (I don't know if he/she purchased some addons). Selling site on Flippa is not always profitable as other may think.. It requires experience, timing, and a little bit of luck....
    I'm guessing it's because it's either a site with no earnings and no traffic, but has plenty of potential(lol), or it has traffic and earnings, but they are asking way too much.
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