Tips for Selling Your Online Business

Featured article by Evelina Brown, Independent Technology Author

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Occasionally, a situation arises where an online business has to be sold. There may be reasons for this – both personal and economic. We will tell you how to sell a business so as not to be at a loss and not ruin your reputation.

There can be many reasons for selling a business. Perhaps the owner does not see opportunities for profit increase or has lost personal interest, intends to create a new business, or change the type of activity. It also happens that the store was originally created for resale to third parties. As you prepare to sell your online business, potential buyers are likely to scrutinize your company’s legal structure amongst other things. If you formed an LLC for your business, its transferability can be a valuable selling point. If you’re considering forming an LLC for a future business, this zenbusiness llc review can provide valuable insights into one of the popular options in LLC formation services.

Understanding when to sell your business is crucial and having a good understanding of the factors involved can help you make an informed decision.

One way or another, it is worth analyzing the growth rate of the business, its profitability, and the market situation, including analyzing competitors’ business. If the store was active, if it was promoted, if there is a client base and a staff of employees, it is possible to find a new owner. This article can help you to understand it better.

How to prepare your online business for sale

It is important to present any product to the buyer in a favorable light, and a business is no exception. Before selling an online store, you need to update the content, improve the layout and design, update advertising banners, check the correctness of all links and elements, prepare all financial reports and describe business processes, resolve copyright issues for the elements of the program code, texts, and images.

What should be done?

– Update content. First, a site with fresh content will look more relevant. And secondly, it can have a beneficial effect on search engine rankings.

– Improve the layout of the site. It will be difficult to implement a project with noticeable design defects.

– Remove outdated banners and advertisements.

– Check the correctness of the site.

– Prepare a financial report on the activities of the store. The financial report is your “trump card”, especially if you are selling a successful project. Demonstrate to the client that you control the processes of organizing the trade in your store.

– Describe the business processes. In order for the product to be ready for sale, the site should become as free of your presence as possible. You can record all actions for servicing orders in a special instruction, which then can be used without you.

– Re-register accounts.

– Pay attention to legal issues. For example, the topic of copyright for program code.

Then you need to establish the cost of the project, and very few people manage to do this on their own. Better to call an outside evaluator. The cost of a running online store is influenced by the age of its site, the daily number of visitors, sale numbers, indexing of the site in search engines, and the streamlining of sales and supply channels. As a rule, a formed business is easier to sell than a project at the initial stage.

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How to start selling?

We are used to pre-sale preparation. Whether it’s a car or an apartment, before the deal, the owner thinks about how to present the product to the buyer in the best possible way. The website of the online store should also be updated before the selling process.

For example, if the owner is considering starting a jewelry business, it would be important to showcase the best pieces and highlight the products’ unique features to attract potential customers.

In the process of pre-sale preparation, difficulties may arise with determining the cost of the project. It is unlikely that the owner himself will be able to set an adequate price that meets the real state of affairs both in the online store itself and in the market for its implementation. It would be reasonable to call a third-party appraiser, broker, who will help with the search for buyers.

Indicators affecting the cost of an online store:

– the age of the website of the online store ;

– the number of visitors of the site (if the attendance is less than 100 people per day, then, most likely, this is a loss-making store that does not bring profit);

– the number of online sales;

– the degree of indexing by search engines;

– channels for the purchase and sale of goods.

An audit of all these parameters adds up to the real price of an online store that is put up for sale. Of course, external factors of the general market situation cannot be ruled out: the fall in the dollar exchange rate, the general economic crisis, etc. These reasons are difficult to “put out of brackets” if you live in the existing realities.

It is logical that it will be easier to sell an already formed business with streamlined processes than a recently created one.

Where can you sell your online furniture store?

Most often, online stores are listed on specialized business exchanges. In this case, the entire process is led by professional brokers, and the store owner does not have to look for a buyer or complete transactions. A competent broker will be able to assess the chances of a successful sale and purchase, present the business from a profitable side, actively look for potential buyers, and report to you on every step.

You can post your ad on message boards. In this case, you will have to present the business and negotiate on your own, but you do not need to spend money on the services of a broker.

You can put your store up for sale on a thematic forum or in a community on a social network. So you can not only find a buyer but also get professional advice from colleagues. You can post an ad on your personal page on any of the social networks or in groups for the sale of online stores.

Another option is to find a buyer among retail store owners who want to develop towards e-commerce. By purchasing a ready-made website, an offline seller will gain stable positions in search engines, suppliers, and customer bases. You can even negotiate with competitors: perhaps one of them will see the prospects for the development of your business. Like for example Nyfurnitureoutlets which is a really interesting case of a successful online furniture store.

When you are selling a business, you need to act deliberately, without involving suppliers, employees, or buyers in these processes. Do not be afraid if the first attempt to create an online store ended this way: perhaps the next one will be more successful, and you can profitably invest the money from the sale in another business.