Sellling your website...

[fuzzie bear]

What kind of prices do website prices run at ?

Do you base it just on your profits on a yearly basis etc or does it work differently for e-business?

For example, if I was to sell my site, do you just solely rely on the profits or do you build into it advertising costs you've paid etc..

[jont]

Depends what you are selling - just the URL, the list of customers, the stock, the whole caboodle.

You need to make the sale depending on what your annual turnover is and what growth patterns you have experienced as well as projections for the next 12 months.

Charging for advertising is part of the operating costs so you could not realistically list these as a seperate entity - better to make a small allowance on the valuation. The buyer could simply request all advertising be stopped as it is incompatible with their current procedures.

It is likely your customer contact details are worth far more than anything else and is what any buyers will be looking at ... so need to show size of customer base, average spend, repeat custom etc etc. When the likes of Yahoo and AOL buy out all those small websites for huge monies it is solely (usueally) for the customer database and loyalty that has been created

[pinbrook]

As far as i know it should be based simply on annual income. Much the same as if you were selling an other type of business.

the trick is to find a buyer

[fuzzie bear]

If you base it on annual income, would you include all your contacts, previous orders etc or do you think people should pay extra for these ??

[CymraegKev]

I recently sold my first Actinic based business (www.rugbymemories.com)

The price I agreed with the purchaser was my percieved value of the website itself (i.e how much would it cost to build that site from scratch - my time and investment), anual profit, value of captured customer base and value of outstanding overheads (i.e adwords etc.)

I broke the sale down into those areas and with a bit of tweaking we agreed a price.

Of course, there could be a thousand other factors in agreeing a fee.

Good luck,

Kevin

[drink75]

I am also currently selling one of my sites. I am selling it at a price that covers the man hours used to create it only. This gives me more flexibility on price ensuring it sell quickly and also allows me to recoup any loss by rebranding it and selling a revised version again. I guess you got to be in a sellers market to do that though.

[chris ashdown]

As a guide you could look at what franchise operations charge in the local papers

This is for a start up business

You would be offering a number of years trading, and hopefully a good idea of future profits

For a small bussiness i would have thought a minimum of this years profits plus your wages multiplied by between 5 and 8 times

Goodwill needs to be a proven quantity now days, if none of your customers come back for second orders then its value is very low if anything, High SEO rateings and high re-order demand or great newsletter could make it high

At the end of the day it's only what someone else is willing to pay, but a operation thats up and running and making money is far quicker, cheaper and safer than starting from nothing

You should have a local business support company, run by the council who can advise you.

Maybe Actinic could have a "site for sale page in this forum"

[steveaich]

So once you've valued your site(business), where would you adviertise it? Or would you approach competitors directly?

[Luddite]

Have a look at: http://www.daltonsbusiness.com/
Its more for 'bricks and mortar' businesses, but should give you a few pointers esp as business turnovers are often included in details.

Nick

[Mike Hughes]

For a small bussiness i would have thought a minimum of this years profits plus your wages multiplied by between 5 and 8 times

Nice thought Chris, but not in the real world.

Mike

[jont]

Nice thought Chris, but not in the real world.

Mike

The forum is going to shrink very quickly if we can all make that sort of multiplier

[fleetwood]

The forum is going to shrink very quickly if we can all make that sort of multiplier

hmmm, I better crack on fast with my plans to build an Actinic site to sell all of the businesses that are rapidly going up for sale

Then I can sell it for a fortune and retire a happy man

[chris ashdown]

You take 2 or 3 years to make a site from scratch

Profits are say £10,000 per year and you pay yourself £20,000 total £30,000
so why is £150,000 wrong

Where are you going to buy a profitable company for less than that. Have a look at franchises fees and they are for warm startup's with quite a high risk

[chris ashdown]

Another option appoint a manager on £20,000 and have £10,000 plus growth a year for doing nothing

[Mike Hughes]

Chris,

The only bit that counts is the profit, not the salary. The salary is for doing a job and people can get a job anywhere without having to pay for it.

Option 2 is exactly the case in point. If there's a £10,000 profit being generated then how much is that worth? The expected return for a business investment in a strong stable business is usually in the 10-15% region (due to the risky nature of business). For a small business it's usually much, much higher.

So even for a strong, stable business a £10,000 return /year is only worth £60,000 - £100,000 including all the money tied up in assetts. For a small business you're really looking a small fraction of that.

Mike