Schumacher & F1 Merchandise, High SE rankings, PR 6, consistent $10,000+ avg/mo

Main Site highlights:

1) Site is COMPLETELY work-free (as in - NILL - you don't have to touch it at any given time, unless you prefer to market it further). Customer support, inventory, and shipping are all done for you.

2) SEO Rankings are high for very targeted keywords, and have been that way since the site's inception pretty much, and they get you most of the visitors & customers. There are no expenses other than hosting.

3) The site has averaged $1,150 in NET profit ($10,000 gross revenue) per month for the past 17 months. You may improve on your commissions from each sale If a better deal is negotiated with the dropshipper (who does all your support, inventory, and shipping, credit card charging, etc.), or you change to a different dropshipper, revenue will increase - Site owner has not had time to research this further.

4) Revenue has been consistantly increasing. In a direct month to month comparison of revenue in 2005 vs. 2004, there is a steady pattern of 20-30% increase. Site has peaks during holiday season, as well as during the best Formula 1 races (October and November, with parts of September and December according to the owner). Last year the best month was roughly $20,000.

5) Commissions are 10% on unsigned products, and 15% on signed ones. During peaks, signed products make up around 35% of the revenue, while normally they make up around 10% of the revenue.

6) Site has a PR 6. Ranks high for a lot of relevant industry keywords, mostly in the top 5 (Schumacher, Schumacher merchandise, F1 mechandise, Ferrari merchandise). Rankings are achieved in MSN, Google, Yahoo, and other engines. The engine referring the most traffic is Google.

7) Expenses are only your shared hosting costs. You may choose to promote the site via adwords or overture, for the keywords you are not ranked high on, to maximize exposure.


URL:
http://www.schumacher-fanclub.com

Age of site (months):
19 (turned to an e-commerce store 17 months ago)

Monthly revenue: $10,000

Revenue details:

Consistent revenue over 17 months. First full month of revenue was May of
2004, in which around $7,000 were earned. Total revenue made to date -
around $175,000 (this is not net profit - see below for more).

Each month of this current year has seen on average a 20-30%% increase
in a direct month to month comparison of revenue on any month in 2005
compared to 2004.

Revenue is steady, with peaks starting at September, reaching a maximum
in Octoer & November (When some of the best formula 1 races are usually
held.), and then some in December (usaully during the most popular races,
and slightly after it is over when a large influx of people are looking to buy
all sorts of merchandise related to the industry). Holiday season is
coming up soon - from last year's figures, it appears revenue during peaks
could go to 20K/month.

Races are held throughout the year in many parts of the world, hence the
consistent revenue.

All products are drop shipped, all customer support is being handled for
you, and your only expenses are for a relatively cheap hosting account
of your choice

Commissions are paid by the dropshipper, every month on the 20th via ACH
(scans of ACH transfer will be made available via PM to serious buyers). The
commissions are as follows:

1) 10% of all regular items.
2) 15% of all signed items.

Signed items tend to make up 10% of the revenue during normal months,
and up to 35% of the revenue during peak months. It appears that people
are willing to spend more, and prefer collectibles as gifts during the holiday
season.

Total in commissions made from the store thus far is in excess of $19,000.
This is net profit, minus your average shared hosting fees!

Average order size is currently around $125, with many of the orders
totalling several hundreds of dollars. Every couple of months you get an
order for a 4 figure sum, obviously from very enthusiastic fans

The website has a list of around 1,800 past customers, including e-mail
addresses, physical addresses, past order amount, etc.. The list has
only been approached around 3 times so far, so the new owner is
encouraged to market to it on a much more consistent basis for repeat
business.

September revenue stats have not been crunched yet, but stats for last
September (2004) were close to $15,000.

Revenue proof will be sent via PM to all serious bidders. Revenue proof is
available in the form of ACH scans, several e-mail receipt screenshots, and
a general screenshot of the owner's inbox folder for receipts (customer
details will not be provided).

Monthly page views: 10,000

Traffic details:

Site has a PageRank 6. The owner WILL keep all links from his other website
to this site for a period of at least 1 year (possibly more if site is purchased
for a reasonable amount. This may be negotiated via PM)! However, the
website has A LOT of natural links as well. This is because since in its
inception it was really a fanclub for Michael Schumacher. Current link count
at marketleap is 1,704.

Traffic comes mainly from Google, yahoo, MSN and other search engines.
The website is ranked incredibly well (top 5 for most of the below @ Google,
yahoo and other engines) for terms such as "Schumacher, Michael
Schumacher, F1 Merchandise, Ferrari Merchandise, Schumacher
merchandise, Schumacher caps, Schumacher shirts" and several misspellings
of the name. Search around a few times and you'll see that the site keeps
coming up at the front page, and many times at the top 5, for pretty much
any relevant terms you could think of in that field.

Most of the site's traffic is received from google (obviously among other
thing, due to the site's PR), but a lot is conrtibuted by other search engines
as well.

The traffic is obviously very quality due to the purchasing activity of these
visitors, and the sheer sums of money spent. I would say that's related to,
at least in part, free international shipping offered by the dropshipper. If you
prefer insured shipping, he only charges $15 - internationally!

I know as an international myself that shipping charges could be a deal
breaker for me in most cases of ordering products from the net.

Site has been hosted together with the owner's other sites on a dedicated
server, but your average shared hosting account will be more than enough -
the traffic is not a problem. Average bandwidth per month goes to around
10 GB.

Traffic can be seen using the stats service currently on the site.
Click here for traffic stats.

Description:

The website is owned by one of my clients. Please PM any questions you
may have, and I will provide the answers to them if I know them, or get the
answers directly from the owner if I don't.

The site sells Formula 1, Ferrari, and Michael Schumacher merchandise using
a storefactory interface, which is totally taken care of by the dropshipper.
The site sells caps, puma clothing, F1 collectibles, and more.

The owner tried spending $250 per month on shopping.com's listings, but
that didn't prove to produce a good enough result - so he wouldn't
recommend advertising there.

There are plenty of Adwords & overture keywords you could advertise in. I
would generally recommend advertising only for keywords that don't have a
high ranking, as to avoid incurring advertising expenses which will produce
results that would probably have been there (or at least in part) already.

Since a large part of the website's traffic comes from Google, advertising via
adwords should be fairly easy - you will have a very good estimate as to
the quality of the visitors and their conversion rate for certain terms.

The site was initially started as a Schumacher fanclub, and later converted
to an online store and purchased by the current owner (who has owned the
site since mid April 2004).

The owner of the website is a very smart individual, and knows what he's
got in his hands. Offers below the starting price will not be accepted
He will not sell for less than $26,000, and would rather keep the site and
earn over $1,000 doing absolutely nothing, while watching the monthly
revneue continue to increase.

To him keeping the website is a sure bet - if anything, it has shown
consistent growth over the 17 month period during which it was operated
profitably.

This is not your average online business, as formula 1 races are here to
stay, and fans will always want unique merchandise & collectibles.

The site offers many items that are completely unique (as in - the buyer
knows he would be the only owner of such an item in the world), and that
sells to Formula 1 enthusiasts. The same would be true about any other
such market - unique collectibles sell best.

On top of that, you are not committed to this dropshipper & their
commission plan in any way. You may negotiate a settlement with the
current dropshipper - for example if you take over customer support (keep
in mind you are responsible for at least $10,000 of his gross revenue per
month, so your bargaining power here is not small by any means), or find a
different dropshipper by researching.

As of posting this thread initially, the next Formula 1 race is in 8 days, 21
hrs, 22 mins, 10 secs to go!

Price (or starting bid): $26,000

Is an auction?: No

BIN price: Offers via PM will be considered.

I wish all the best to all bidders!

Sincerely,

Adi Friedman
Two Believers Web Holdings.

 

At the top you mention $10,000 monthy revenue, in the middle somewhere you imply $1,000 and say that the site generates $10,000 monthy revenue to the dropshipper. Which is it? BTW, I'm just curious, not going to be able to make an offer.

 

How would this sentence, in bold be implying?

Total revenue made to date -
around $175,000 (this is not net profit - see below for more).

The site makes a total revenue of $10,000 per month on average. What you get to keep from that, in an average month, is $1,150. That's without ANY work on your end, including customer support.

Thanks for your post, I hope this cleared things out. I can't think of a better way to ensure people understand this is not net profit than saying "this is not net profit" in bold

Adi Friedman
TwoBelievers Web Holdings.

 

The revenue is clearly $1,000 (or a bit above that). The $10,000 figure was reffering to total sales.

Nice sales thread, though.. got to admit. Good luck with the sale.

 

OK, thanks for clearing that up. I just sort of got lost in the longish post. Thanks for the info, it looks like an interesting proposition, but I'll have to pass for other reasons.

 

I added a "Site Main Highlights" section at the top, for us skimmers (Yes, I don't like reading a lot too, but when it comes to a website of this magnitude, I'd prefer to know all the details, rather than ask everything via PM).

SPdude, thanks for clearing that up

All the best to you, I'm off for today, will be back first thing tomorrow (it's 3:30 AM here in Israel).

Adi Friedman
TwoBelievers Web Holdings.

 

What country are the top buyers from (like top 5) and how many percent on each of those?

 

Kservik - good question.

Around 45% are from the United States. An additional 15% are from the UK. The rest are spread over a lot of countries, although you could see that Canada, France, and Germany are the closers of the top 5 (Canada at around 3%, France close to that same figure, and Germany is slightly lower, at around 2%) .

The rest is split over a lot of countries. Being an international, I could definitely see why anyone coming to the site would be surprised for the better - free international shipping is not something you would normally see. This would explain why the customer base is so diverse.

Please let me know if you have any further questions, or if you would like to see proof of the revenue and records of the orders. You will be able to see that revenue for any specific month this year, has grown by a rate of 20-30% compared to revenue in the same month last year - and that's with no additional marketing related work.

Thank you very much for your time!

Adi Friedman
TwoBelievers Web Holdings.

 

UPDATE: Apparently the traffic stats link I provided is completely broken. Actual traffic stats seem to lean more towards 2,000-3,000 unique visitors per day, rather than 2,000-3,000 per month as it would seem from the broken stats link I provided. Webtrends proof soon to follow, PM / reply to this thread if you need more information.

 

I don't mean to bump my thread here again, but I can't seem to find a way to edit any of my above posts, and I must add this information so here goes:

UPDATE: Apparently the traffic stats link I provided is completely broken. New traffic proof links posted (First one is for a 24 hour period on September 17th. The second is from July 12th to August 25th. The data was mined from the owner's logs using Webtrends)

First Screenshot
Second Screenshot

The BIN has been set to $31,000! The owner is looking for a quick transaction. We are getting interested bidders via PM, and I would like to thank everyone for taking a look at this sales thread!​

 

Seller is looking for quick liquidation! First person to post $25,000 BIN gets the site!!! Starting bid or lower offers no longer available!​

 

12Xmonthly profit is my bid.

$12K

 

Hi, as I replied to you in the other forum:

Your offer is kindly refused, but I'd like to thank you for bidding anyway. Offers under $25,000 will not be accepted unfortunately.

A site with 0 work involved that offers more than a few ways of increasing net profit is worth a lot more than your average 10 months of net profit formula.

Would you sell your site for 10 months of profit if it has been working for you for a solid 17 months, and all you had to do the entire time is watch the ACH transfers come in? I know I wouldn't.

Thanks again for your time. We have a couple of interested individuals via PM, but no actual BIN posts just yet. First person to post BIN wins

Adi Friedman
TwoBelievers Web Holdings.

 

Personally I wold probably not sell at this price, but at the same time, as a buyer, I would be very hesitant to pay more than 2 years worth of profit for a site when I know that factors outside of my control (such as a major update in search engine rankings) could significantly alter my income.

I agree that the hands-free approach on this site increases value, but if you assume the typical sales price of a website to be 6-12 months profit, I am not sure if it increases it up to 4 times or more...

I too am interested in the site, and might be willing to stretch a little higher than $12,000. However, by my valuations the risk/reward does not warrant a price of $25,000.

Geir

 

Let me know when your client drops the price again, may be able to go a little higher.

 

Unfortunately there will not be another drop in price, other than that of my own personal commissions for the sale. I would be willing to drop the price up to 5%, but no more than that, as that would not be profitable for me.

Geir - I hear where you are coming from. I do have a couple of points for you, though:

1) The search engine positions have been kept pretty much the same for the past 17 months. The site is ranked very well on several top search engines, and so you are not dependant on just one for traffic.

2) According to Webtrends logs from the screenshot I provided, only 59,748 visitors came from search engines. That's from a total of 152,542 visits. You can see this information in the Webtrends screenshot I posted.

hdpt00 - Thank you very much again for your offer, the above is the best I can do currently. I have contacted competing websites and we are getting some interest through there, as well, so the auction may soon be closed if a good offer comes in from a competing formula 1 merchandise store who will obviously know how to better utilize a $10K/month revenue and turn it into a net profit that's higher than the current one.

Thank you very much again for your interest!

Adi Friedman
TwoBelievers Web Holdings.

P.S.

Just another thought - holiday season is coming very soon, that's when a much higher percentage of sales are made.

 

realistically you could probably sell your site for around 12k-15k. Your revenues are solely dictated by your rankings in the major search engines. You also have no physical assets. We all know from past experiences that google has its hurricane seasons. Nobody is going to risk waiting 2 years to make there moneyback especially when google could have a new algo and screw them. Just my 2 cents. Good luck with the sale.

 

jnm007a - I respect your opinions. Here are mine:

The search engine rankings are not entirely based on Google at all, they are pretty high on other search engines as well. Google has kept the positions relatively the same for this site the past 17 months though. On top of that, as I have shown only around 35% of the traffic is produced from search engines based on the Webtrends log report screenshot I included. The rest are more than likely from bookmarks, since the site has existed for 19 months (17 as an Ecommerce site).

Apparently, there are those who disagree with you regarding the price, though, and are willing to lean more closely towards my client's BIN than you had thought.

Also, as I explained, you could do several things to improve net profits:

1) Increase prices and watch the conversion to make sure it doesn't drop too low so your net profits aren't damaged.

2) Switch to a different dropshipper / wholesaler (I have already found two -I'm personally looking into possibly either selling the website to those, or just plain closing a dropshipping agreement with them and taking over the site for a percent of net profit for myself - If this goes well enough, I might end up administrating the site myself and sharing profits with the current owner).

3) Reach a different agreement with the current dropshipper (he currently does all work, including customer support, for which I understand why he is keen on keeping most of the revenue).

To sum things up - you also get a list of approximately 2,000 customers, which has been contacted between 2 and 3 times at the most during the entire life of the site. You could get a nice amount of repeat purchasers from such a list - just a nice addon to supplement your income on a per month basis, nothing major of course.

All the best, and thank you for your feedback!

Adi Friedman
TwoBelievers.com Web Holdings.

 

There is not those who disagree, as you can tell everyone disagrees. Highly unlikely your 65% as you claim are coming back from bookmarks and purchasing and purchasing, it is most likely new traffic. I am putting my bid at 10K now.

 

hdpt00 - I won't argue that because neither I nor you have a way of knowing at this time.

Either way, again, you can't bid at 10K since there is no starting bid that low - your bid is declined. I'm beginning to think your bids are just a means of trolling the thread. If you'd like to make a bid lower than what a seller is asking for (you've done that several times, on 2 different forums - which obviously shows your real goal here isn't to get noticed by me... if I may say so) - why not take it up with the seller via PM?

I will most likely not be selling to anyone through the forums, that much I gather, and I understand where you are coming from - I would probably have the same concerns myself if I was on the other end.

Thank you very much again for your time, all the best!

Adi Friedman
TwoBelievers.com Web Holdings.