I am looking at buying a few different websites, however they aren't listed as for sale. How should I go about contacting the owner. Should I just email him/her asking for their price and if they would be willing to sell or is there a better way around this? Also, other than asking price and supplying website details of stats etc., should I ask for anything else from the owner? I have a feeling that a decent price will make the owners sell, as the sites are looking quite old.
You could email them and ask if they want to sell the site. I would wait untill they email back to talk about price.
Agreed with rcj662, most people with a legitimate profitable website will not want to sell their website. They had probably put a lot of work in it to get it to the point where it is making money. If you really want to buy a website, I would recommend looking in the Buy, Sell, Trade section and SitePoint. Sometimes some good deals come across those forums. But do NOT jump the gun and buy a website just to be buying one, wait until you find something you are interested in and that you think has true potential.
The reason why I want to buy the website is because its a competin site to one I already own. The program essentially does that it sells generally does the same as my program, however the program is browser based, instead of download, allowing my purchasers to use the program on my site rather than download. I think that the owner probably will sell, as the website looks horribly outdated, as if it hasn't been touched for years. THe only ggod thing about the site is the program, and possibly the somewhat cheasy domain name
I would email them direct with a very professional letter stating that you would like to purchase the website and make them a fair offer.
You can try doing a whois to get his email, then asking for if he's selling, but most likely he won't be interested... If the site is even semi-profitable, you might have to make a VERY generous offer to get him thinking...