Selling Profitable 3.5 Year Old Site Selling Modern Products: Furniture, Lighting, and More

A friend of mine is auctioning his ecommerce site on Flippa:

http://flippa.com/auctions/74131/Profitable-3-5-yo-Site-Selling-Modern-Products-Furniture-Lighting-and-More-


Overview:

Follow Function is an incredible opportunity for anyone looking for an established ecommerce business.

Launched in March of 2006, we've been selling high quality products to customers of modern design for 3.5 years. Our product categories include Furniture, Kitchen, Lighting, Toys, Kids Furniture, and the always intriguing, Mystery. We currently offer 99 products for sale, but that is only scratching the surface in this space. There is a lot of opportunity to grow.

It is our goal to tell the story behind each design and designer. We've discovered that if the customer knows about the blood, sweat, and tears that go into bringing an expertly designed product to market, then they are more likely to purchase that product. They have a stronger bond with it, and it becomes a conversation piece in their homes. Our efforts resulted in high quality, unique copy on every product page. For a good example, check out our interview with Mint.

All of our larger items, including furniture, are dropshipped. We keep inventory on the smaller items.



Why we are selling:

Follow Function is still run by its founding partners. It was a very difficult decision for us to sell, because we still see the incredible potential in it. Unfortunately, we are both swamped with other projects and we don't have the time to continue its growth.

In the right hands (perhaps someone with SEO expertise), Follow Function could do very well.



Fun Facts:

600 customers on our mailing list

Approximately $5,000 worth of inventory is optional with the sale

Complete Adwords account included in sale

Highest revenue earned in one month: $4,000

We've been linked to from some of the top blogs on the web, including:

BoingBoing
Apartment Therapy
Luxist
Designer Daily
Product Dose
Omiru
Core77
Babble
Junior Society
DesignBot
Notcot

Our monthly costs:

Hosting: $25

Merchant Services: $25

Toll Free Number (optional): $25

 

Is this dropshipping or actual inventory? I know you said the inventory is optional but just asking given the "Merchant Services" fee. Not sure if that's just Authorize.net or a dropshipping service.

 

Where are you getting the toll free number from? Would it be possible to transfer its ownership without changing it?

 

Greetings. The auction on Flippa is actually mine. My friend Bonez was kind enough to mention it here on Digital Point.

Some of our products are dropshipped and some of it is kept by us as inventory. The dropshipped items are sent directly by our manufacturers to the customers, and there is no fee associated with this. (All of our larger items, including furniture, are dropshipped.)

The Merchant Services fee is just a credit card processing fee.

Thanks for your interest!

 

We use Grasshopper (until recently known as gotvmail) for our toll free number and it is transferable. Thanks.