Large Established Car Forum For Sale

I will make this short, if you would like more info; shoot me an email (support @at@ exotixboard.com). Please note that while I’m looking to sell the site; I'm in no hurry. The reason for the sale is that I’m moving on with other projects. I also no longer have the time to run or update the site. I started the site in early 2005 and up until this point it have been the sole admin of it. The member base is now close to 3,000 members, many of those which are regular posters. The income - I've never looked at this site as a business, but more so as a hobby. I’ve never really made an effort to promote it to an extent where much money could be drawn from it. The site does occasionally have a few detailer sponsors during the spring and summer months. I've also ran adsense/ypn on the site for a few weeks to test last year and the average was around $5-15 a day. The value of this site lies in the community, content, and recognition, not the revenue it currently generates.

My price is around $15,000 USD, please note that is not a finial buy it now price (had confusion with that here before). That price reflects a ball park figure. I may consider offers lower and of course higher then that. So please do not hesitate to make an offer (no low balls please – don’t waste your time or mine).

I'm looking for a person or company that is willing to take this site to the next level. The site means a lot to me and I wouldn't want to see it go to waste with tons of ads, or spam. The site has a strong community built around it with many enthusiasts and I’d like someone to keep building on that idea.

The site currently runs Vbulletin 3.6.8 with a custom skin that I created in 2006. All configuration information can be given in detail via email (see above) if requested.
Thanks for your time.

Site URL: Exotic Cars

PLEASE DO NOT POST UNLESS YOU ARE INTERESTEAD IN THE SITE

 

What kind of traffic does it receive?

 

Very interesting site to add to my 11 car sites collection

For a start... can you share some revenue this site might have?
I mean, you base your 15k in what exactly?

Also, same question as poohbear88 - traffic and referrals.

 

$15k is based off the size of the community, content, age/recognition, and of course the potential. It took a long time to build the site to where it is today and I think thats worth a lot in it self. I never made a big effort to extract money from it so the revenue isn't exactly that great, but it pays for server costs at least.

Traffic is up and down - 500-600 uniques per day with the usual members that come thru (adds another 100-200 non-unique visitors). About 4,000-5,000 page views per day.

 

I'd like to see traffic screenshots from Analytics, or Xtreme tracker placed on the site for a month. Otherwise post up your awstats screens.

Also, post screens of your member logins per day from the vb admin panel for the last two months by "day"
Post screens of your post and thread counts per day for the last 2 months from the vb admin panel.



You have zero activity currently. Based on that fact alone, you, in my opinion will not see near your asking price.

This niche is much too narrow to get a huge community built up. (not many millionares who own these cars will be posting there) Enthusiasts in these cars won't generate any money by attracting potential advertisers because they don't own them. They can't afford the cars, much less the parts.

So that limits the real valuable content true owners provide the community.

The design is very nice. The idea is very nice. Everyone loves exotics. But. . . it isn't growing, is not active, and would take a large investment to get it to the point that is an active, and growing community.

You would have much more luck selling it for what you think it's worth if you spent some time building it up. Getting it active etc.

With that said, I'll start you off at $600. My offer would be higher if you show some good traffic screens. (Which I would have to verify myself before purchase.) My bids assume vb license is included, and you come through with all requested screens and allow access to admin panel (ultimately).

 

I will get some stats togather. As for the offer, I've had an offer for $7500 a year ago; $600 in comparison is a low ball offer. There are many exotic car forums that have tons of sponsors and many members that are real owners. Just to name a few. 6speedonline.com, ferrarichat.com, lambopower.

 

This is indeed an interesting site.. very nice design.

I'll offer 40 months revenue.. but of course that might end up to be less than a couple of grand. So basicly what it boils down to is you need to generate as much revenue yourself as possible before attempting a sale to get the highest price. That's the way things work around here unfortunately.

Unmonetized sites can sell for high amounts sometimes also, but in that case solid traffic stats and vBulletin posts/threads/registration numbers would need to be provided. The numbers need to be compairable to that of other forums which have sold recently in the same price range.

 

That logic doesn't usally apply to communities. Communities are sold on the basis of users and usally potential. Since i've made no attempt to extract any sort of revenue from this site anything "revenue" related will be a low ball offer. Also, I do not want to sell this site to someone who will only focus on revenue. That is the exact opposite of what this community is about. The users that come here enjoy a spam free and relatively ad free enviroment. If that is ruined, the community will most likely disappear. I'm looking for someone like myself - a car lover. A car lover with a bit of time that can take this community to the next level without destroying it with quick money ads.

 

This is just my input and recommendation Ferrarislave as I appreciate where you are totally coming from, but I can't help but comment. If you are more interested in preserving what this community is all about, then forget about getting $15k or ballpark for it. Folks here are looking to invest money on sites that will produce a return, regardless of what the site is about.

You and the audience here are coming from two different worlds. Your price is based on your love for the hobby. The peeps here want to earn their money back plus some, so monetization is their first priority.

If I were in your shoes, post this site in car forums or look deep into your site's current member base and see if you can find the new owner. If you find someone as dedicated and passionate as you are about the culture that revolves around this site, just give it to him/her for a few hundred bucks. You're going to have a difficult time finding someone who has $15k to spend on their hobby. Running forums like these is like a job. Personally, you couldn't pay me $15k to run it.

But if you really want to get that kind of money out of it, I'm afraid spdude is right, start slapping Adsense, analytics, and other monetizing ads on there and come back 3-12 months later with some stats. And even at that point, you can only cross your fingers that even if someone does purchases it for it's revenue potential, they might not ever cherish what you see in this community.

Ultimately, it's up to you what you want but at this point I can almost guarantee you that you can leave this auction up for sale for another year and you won't receive any offers over $1,500 without showing some stable revenue.

Everyone would like to sell their sites for good, if not great returns and also find someone who will take care of it. But rarely will you ever get both. Most revenue generating sites sell every few minutes here only to see those same sites for neglected and put on the block merely weeks later.

Just my 2 cents. Good luck with the site, you do have a nice community there.

Caligent

 

Good advice from the folks here on DP. You will need better stats and at least some hint of revenue. Even then, I doubt you will find a buyer at 15k.

 

Yes, I did mention about unmonitized communities selling for high amounts. It is possible.. but what you need is:

If you can't provide such numbers then it simply wont happen.

 

Right, I understand that. It's all about the $ for sure, but the thing is you CAN get back what you paid for the site if you put some work into it. Like I said before I never made any attempt to get any sort of revenue out of the site so my price reflects a potential and community. I have a buyer offering me $6k at this point, I will see where I go with offers on the usual forums. If not I will just keep it around. I'm not at home now so I will have to get stats later.

 

personally i think an enthusiast (who has no intention to monetize) will not fork out $15k for the site.

For a site with little or no revenue to have a reasonable price, you need to show its potential not by just saying it has potential, but by proving it. With stats, with growing trend and justify it.

Potential buyers here are mostly investors who has what you want, $$$.
We are totally looking for revenue site and also potential sites.

We do not care how much effort or money you put in to make it fail or success. Potential sites to us are possible solid growth even if it is not currently generating revenue.

As you can see, there are actually quite a few big buyers looking at this thread, so if you want to have any amount near your asking price, you have got to convince us.

 

I sold my forum with 32,000 members, 500,000+ posts, and big-board listed for $11,000. The site made about $100-$200 a month .

Forums are its own kind of breed of websites. There is more value to it. Find the right buyer and you can get what you want.

 

You need one of two things:

income, or
traffic

At $15K, potential buyers will want proof.

 

What happened to those screenshots?

 

I would pay $2,000 because it looks pretty.

 

Getting on it, i've been really busy. I will post them tommorow morning. In the process of actually moving that forum to a different forum.

 

stats on the way

 

Great skin