What could I ask for my Wildlife Figurines site?

Hello All,
I'm not sure if this is the right place for this, but I'm guessing it is.

I am seriously considering selling my wildlife figurines web site. It was my first serious project on the internet however, my trading, and trading web site, now take priority, and I can't take the wildlife site to the next level it deserves.

Now, or course the wildlife site sells wildlife figurines and I use DROPSHIPPERS, so I don't stock anything, and I would not say the conversion rate is where it could be - < 1%, although at this time of year it does pick up.

The traffic avergaes around 40-50 a day, although I did buy extra traffic from Revisitors.com on 17th oct, that averaged 60 a day extra up until yesterday, but I pulled the pin on that one. From the attached file though, you can see that even before 17th oct, there is an average of 40-50

All my traffic (apart from the 60/day from revistors.com) is organic, and I have attached some files of my optimized pages and the ranking, keyword searches and PR.

38.59% of the traffic goes to the optimized pages, which are the home, main categories (animal and bird figurines), and then subject categroy pages (such as dolphin figurines, elephant figurines and so on). Meaning the other 61.41% of traffic is even more targeted and would include such terms as 'white tiger figurine' or 'ferret figurine', and as such are landing on product list or product pages themselves.

My Yahoo directory submission ($299/year) was just renewed as of 14th Nov2006.

The only income comes from the sales of the figurines (gross $3.684 this year so far), and the net profits usually average 50%, but the site can be monetized in other ways, if the person was willing. For example, I was accepted by Text Links Ads Ltd to sell ad links on each of the pages with PR3 and the home pages which has PR4.

Here is an extract from their email

The Financials

Please note the price we will be selling links off this page: http://www.wildfigurines.com is between $10.00 and $25.00 per month per link.

We will sell a maximum of 8 links on this page so with our 50% revenue share policy your site can make between $40.00 and $100.00 per month if we fill all 8 ad spots with advertisers.

*Please note final pricing is set in this range by Text Link Ads based on current market demand.

Once we have filled the 8 spots on http://www.wildfigurines.com we will invite you to submit your other top pages and we will continue to fill your individual pages with ads and increasing your monthly income.



The only problem is that my host does not support scripts. This means I can not take advantage of this. The time it would take me to move host, is time I do not have.

There is a lot of room for improvement. For example, even though I have done all the directory submission side of things, and i've written several articles and press releases over the past 12 months, I have not done any reciprocal linking campaigns. I don't have adsense on there either.

Products could be listed in Froogle etc, (which I did late last year and early part of this year, but just didn't keep up with it - in fact around 20% of my sales were coming from Froogle), and other similare places.

I just released an online video, infomercial, on my elephant figurines, which I submitted to 8 video host sites, including youtube, googlevideo, yahoovideo, ifilm, myspace and so on, on the 19th, which cost me nothing to do, and was a bit of fun, and can be done for all of the categories, and apparently has great benefits to SE rankings.

The SE rankings are good for MSN and Yahoo, and so I feel that the google rankings (for the categroy pages) will also get better, especially with reciprocal linking campaigns, and video campaigns, not to mention specific articles and press releases aimed at the categories.

If someone had the time to move to another host, move the product list into another cart script, could take advantage of Text Link Ads, fix up the sales page copy to beef up conversions and so on, do some reciprocal linking (maybe hire someone) , submit to Froogle etc, this site could do well - but for me I don't have the time.

So, what do you think my site is worth or what is a fair price to ask? If anything at all?

 

Could someone tell me where to place this post, I think it's in the wrong spot.
Failing that, is there somewhere that deals with selling and buying web sites etc, such as a broker?

Cheers

 

Not that I have the money
to buy it or anything but I'd say that with proof of revenue, Around the $25,000 level.

It's got a solid design, and is making pretty good cash.

You'd probably have troubles selling it though, because people tend to frown upon dropshippers.

 

Hi GrAveTzT,
Thanks for your comments.

I've never really known that dropshipping was frowned upon, in fact after dealing with so many now (who dropship and wholesale), I've found they love it. I couldn't tell you why but they do. Not that alll of them advertise the fact though, it did take some work to get on board with some.

Now, having said that about dripshipping etc, here's the other part that I'm hoping those with a sense of entreprenuer in them will see, but it doesn't have to just dropship. Someone living in the US for example can actually even stock certain items (those that do not dropship or that can't be found on the web), which I can tell you after my research, will give them an edge against other competitors.

Also, the web site, now that it has some presence in the search engines, can be monetized in other ways, by utilizing the wildlife theme to sell anything related to that. Selling links and ad spots is another way. I've got a list of things that the site could do, but time is not on my side.

Thanks anyway
Dean

 

Okay, so ...

You've made just under $2,000 this year not including expenses such as your directory listing and salary.

Traffic looks to be increasing, so you could forecast say, $3,000 next year?

How much time does the site take up? I assume a fair bit.

Which means you won't have actually MADE that much this year, or forecast to next year.

It's also a very niche market that you might struggle to get interest in.


To put a figure on it, I would say if you were motivated to sell, you should start an auction at $2k with a BIN price of $4k.

 

I'd agree with Chimaera's post for the most part, except I think the amount of work necessary to keep the site going is probably not major at all, I'm guessing 30 minutes a day would do - how many e-mails do 40-50 unique visitors generate anyhow?

Order processing is easy for such small numbers, assuming it's barely 1-2 sales a day on average... so what could take so long?

$2K starting big with a $4K BIN makes sense.

GrAveTzT - I don't know where you got the $25K figure from, but I have a few sites I can offer for sale to someone like you

Adi Friedman, Partner.
Two Believers Web Holdings.

 

Hi Guys,
Thanks for your responses.
I did forget to mention that my site went live in october last year, and from that point to the end of the year, I grossed $555, which isn't bad considering the only traffic I was getting at that stage was from MSN, and a couple of Google Ads (which I did to attract traffic in it's infancy - i haven't used them since). The xmas rush is yet to kick in.

Time spent is only about 15min, if that, when i get a sale, I receive the email of confirmation, i open up commerce site, log on to relevant wholsesaler, place order, send customer receipt and thankyou email and it's done. About 3 to 4 weeks later I send a follow up to make sure they received it ok, and that's how I get my testimonials.

The other time spent will be to go through some wholesalers site's, or their stock list which is sent via email, to check in stock items, although I get my son to do it, but I can't see why you couldn't pay someone who you sourced from elance to do it. If I get a sale and the item is out of stock then I give them the option of waiting or getting theri money back, or if the item is discontinued, I refund striaght away. No issues and it doesn't happen that often.

In all, I have system's in place to deal with each event which I have streamline over time.

What would take some time (apart from moving to a new host if that was the wish) would be to do some recirocal linking campaigns, or any other marketing. Like I said, the directory submission side of it is done, but a few more articles, and even video infomercials wouldn't hurt. I also have around 140 emails and rarely do any email marketing as I'm no good at that.

Once again, there are plenty of you out there who know how to streamline marketing, etc or have the time, but I don't.



BYW what does BIN stand for?

Cheers
Dean

 

BIN = "Buy It Now" - ie the price at which you would sell - the "winning bid" if you like.

 

Oh ok, thanks.

Yeah I'm not sure what to do with this thing. I guess the answer will come to me at the right time.

 

Does anyone know of any other places where interent businesses can be sold. This forum moves way to fast to get a decent exposure

 

This is a great place to sell online businesses.

I have also had success selling sites through Sitepoint and Sedo.

 

Thanks Paula,
I had a look at Sedo, although it's a little confusing. I'm assuming it must do allright though?

Dean

 

tridean, for the best exposure to potential buyers I would recommend Sitepoint.

It's $20 to list, and you will get asked lots of questions if you don't provide all possible statistics ... but it's still the place to sell sites.

I would also list here.

 

Hi chimaera,
Thanks, I'll look into it.
I was wondering about listing it for sael, especially here,

What if I list it for $4000 BIN, and start it at $2000, what happens if I'm not happy with the amount that it goes to? Say it only makes it to $2500, and I feel that's not enough, do I still have control, or do I have to sell it?

I'm a bit concerned about this sort of thing

I'll have a look at the other sites mentioned

Cheers
Dean

 

You can set what's called a "reserve" price that you are not obligated to sell under. And what I would do, is set your BIN a bit higher and then change it later if need be.

 

You can of course set a reserve price, and you are never under any legal obligation to sell (particularly if you state as much in your sales thread).

I'm never a fan of reserves, and would rather people just started their sale at the price they would be happy to sell at. But it's personal preference I guess.