buying website issue

pgj2015

if i have a business, lets say for example an ice cream business called joe blogs ice cream. Tullamore ice cream owners want to retire and offer their web site to me for a fee. will i have to change the name of my business or can i continue to operate as joe blogs ice cream and take control of the tullamore ice cream web site?

M.T.D

If the website produces leads and sales it might be worth acquiring. Unfortunately many sites get few visitors and generate even fewer leads.
There are many ways to evaluate a site. Easiest and most simplistic, is, image you are a potential customer, and do some sample searches for the products and services on Google. If the site appears in the top 3 for most of your searches it might be worth getting. If the site only appears on page 3 you would be better creating a new site.

If the site ranks well the next step is to view the visitor analytics for the site to gauge the amount of traffic.
Unfortunately this will not always mean a lot.
One of my clients, high competition and high value, is happy if he gets 2 jobs a week from the site and as his conversion rate is between 30% and 50% this is only 5-6 calls, maybe only 20 or so website visitors.
Another client takes over 1200 orders a month, low ticket, with fairly high conversion. but with around 2000 visitors a month
Both sites would make a similar amount of money for their owners.
A real working evaluation is get them to put your phone number on the site and see how many calls (sales) you get.

If the site does generate a lot of visitors and sales you do acquire it you have broadly 3 options all with their own pros and cons.
1. keep both sites running with their own branding. only worth it if the sales from each site justify their upkeep.
2 Keep your own site, add pages to match what the competition was doing and put redirects on any ranking pages. Your site will then gain the traffic and hopefully the rankings.
3 Re-brand your business with option 1 or re-brand with option2 in reverse

jimmii

pgj2015 wrote: »

if i have a business, lets say for example an ice cream business called joe blogs ice cream. Tullamore ice cream owners want to retire and offer their web site to me for a fee. will i have to change the name of my business or can i continue to operate as joe blogs ice cream and take control of the tullamore ice cream web site?

Yes you can trade under both names.

pgj2015

i dont have a web site.

can i keep trading under my own name but use the website that is for sale without making any changes?

Mrs OBumble

pgj2015 wrote: »

i dont have a web site.

can i keep trading under my own name but use the website that is for sale without making any changes?

Yes, provided you aren't worried about your customer being confused.

There may be some issues if the Tullamore Ice Cream website is actually selling stuff, as opposed to being used to promote stuff. Does the retiring owner have a trading name or limited liability company registered?

Do you have the ability to make changes to the content of the website? For example if the website says "Buy our icecream at 123 Main Street" - you should at least change this to your own address.

pgj2015

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Yes, provided you aren't worried about your customer being confused.

There may be some issues if the Tullamore Ice Cream website is actually selling stuff, as opposed to being used to promote stuff. Does the retiring owner have a trading name or limited liability company registered?

Do you have the ability to make changes to the content of the website? For example if the website says "Buy our icecream at 123 Main Street" - you should at least change this to your own address.

the customers I will be getting from the web site will all be new customers.

it is a service, items wont be sold through the site. the retiring owner is trading under "tullamore ice cream"as far as im aware. this is just a made up name im using btw.

i will need to make quiet a few changes to the web site so i wont buy it without this being possible.

Axwell

It is not as simple as just buying the website from them. You will need to have them transfer the right for you to use the website domain with the registrar - if it is a .ie then you will have to also meet the IEDR requirements.

pgj2015

im wondering now is it more of a hassle than its worth.

i will have to pay someone to carry out the changes to site and get all required permissions etc

antoinolachtnai

pgj2015 wrote: »

if i have a business, lets say for example an ice cream business called joe blogs ice cream. Tullamore ice cream owners want to retire and offer their web site to me for a fee. will i have to change the name of my business or can i continue to operate as joe blogs ice cream and take control of the tullamore ice cream web site?

You are considering acquiring what is called the 'goodwill' of the target company (which is jargon you call the company you want to acquire or acquire from .

It isn't just the website; it's all the rights in the name. Things like telephone numbers are also important.

Most important is the target company's existing customers. If you aren't getting them, i'm not sure there is much point.

Acquiring goodwill does involve a certain amount of bureaucracy unfortunately.

You do have to decide if it is worth doing.

If all this is supposed to give you is leads, why don't you have the guy refer and perhaps work on securing the leads for you. Then you pay him for the successful leads. This is risk-free, but allows your target to get full value for whatever value he creates, if he creates it. You could agree that if the arrangement is successful to the degree of bringing in a certain amount of business, that you will buy everything off him for some pre-agreed price.

Mrs OBumble

Axwell wrote: »

I - if it is a .ie then you will have to also meet the IEDR requirements.

These days, this is very easy: you just need an Irish address.

pgj2015

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

You are considering acquiring what is called the 'goodwill' of the target company (which is jargon you call the company you want to acquire or acquire from .

It isn't just the website; it's all the rights in the name. Things like telephone numbers are also important.

Most important is the target company's existing customers. If you aren't getting them, i'm not sure there is much point.

Acquiring goodwill does involve a certain amount of bureaucracy unfortunately.

You do have to decide if it is worth doing.

If all this is supposed to give you is leads, why don't you have the guy refer and perhaps work on securing the leads for you. Then you pay him for the successful leads. This is risk-free, but allows your target to get full value for whatever value he creates, if he creates it. You could agree that if the arrangement is successful to the degree of bringing in a certain amount of business, that you will buy everything off him for some pre-agreed price.

there are no existing customers,99% of customers that will contact me through the web site will be first time customers.

the web site is the first google result when looking for this particular business in my area.

pgj2015

i know its hard to say but how much would you pay for such a website?

antoinolachtnai

Well what flow of customers is coming from it at the moment?

lastusername

So it sounds like this might be a website relating to a trade; e.g. a plumber or logistics or removals company or something. If they rank no.1 for service name + area then it comes down to how many people are searching for that service in that area on Google.

This is what you need to find out because if there are a lot of people searching then it represents a great opportunity. In fact, even if there are only a few, then it could still be an excellent opportunity as it will be qualified traffic, and if the margin on the service is good, even better.

Generally a website is sold for a multiple of its monthly profit, or its 12 month average to take any seasonality into account. Since there are no customers and presumably there is no revenue, it's about assessing what it's worth to you, and that depends on the details I mention above.

Here's a sample formula:

Sales Price = Monthly Net Profit X Multiple + Discounted Assets (if any) + Wholesale Inventory (if any).

For you, the part after the '=' could be something expressed as the volume of leads generated per month from the estimated monthly traffic x value per lead.