We all know how digitalisation has changed the way things are done. Most companies, small or big, have been relying on their digital assets to promote their business and create awareness about their products and services. These assets are proof of your digital presence. They make everything easier for a business and/or an individual. But, for several new beginnings, let them be moving on to pursue your other interests or looking to build their dream business online.. Whatever might the reason behind it be, you might need to sell your digital assets sometimes, and there might be someone somewhere else, who is looking for a website or an app exactly like yours. What if there is a medium that connects you both? Anyway, in this article, we will look at one such marketplace that could help you do so.
Have you been looking for a place to sell your digital assets? Or maybe buy one? Well, if you are considering options before you choose one, this Flippa review might just be the one you need. Keep reading and find a detailed review of Flippa and all that you need to know about it.
Page Contents
What is Flippa?
Before we move forward with the review, let us first understand what Flippa is. Like we already mentioned above, Flippa is an online marketplace where you can buy or sell your websites, domains, online businesses and other digital assets. The transactions on Flippa happen on a peer to peer basis. This means that you will directly be connected to the potential buyers or sellers that matches your bid. The platform currently has over 3 Million users all over the world and has sold about 300,231 digital assets worldwide.
Digging into its background, Flippa was founded in 2009, by Mike Mickiewicz and Mark Harbottle as a marketplace for SitePoint. Flippa initially was launched as a SitePoint marketplace dedicated to the selling and buying of domain names and websites. Later in 2009, Flippa Spun off to be its own separate site. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, US and Melbourne, Australia. You will learn more about Flippa further in the article. For now, Let’s have a look at the Flippa website.
Flippa Website
This picture right below is the home page of the Flippa website.
The website has a very user-friendly interface that literally anyone can buy and sell their digital assets on Flippa. Everything on the website is very easy to find and all the categories are clearly listed and distinguished from each other. Under the browse category, you can find the major asset types that you can buy or sell on Flippa.
The major categories listed are
- Websites
- Apps
- Domains
- Collections
Under each of these categories, there are subcategories into which the listings are categorized. Like you can see above, Under the Websites category, there are
- SaaS
- Marketplace
- Content
- eCommerce
- Services
Similarly, under the apps, there are Android Apps and iOS apps. And under the category of the domains, you can find different domain types under which specific domain names are listed.
The website also has the services tab, pricing tab and others listed on the home page, clicking on which you will be directed to the detailed description of the services provided and related information. Overall, the website interface is very friendly to its user, whether they are visiting the website for the first time or the 100th time. Check out their website and find it for yourself.
Now that we have covered the website, let us look at the services provided on Flippa one by one, starting with their valuation tool.
Website Valuation
Website valuation is a calculation of how much the website is worth. To calculate the website worth we need to consider a lot of things like what generates website traffic volume, how rare the domain name is, website ranking, conversion rates and many other factors. Also, the website that brings in more organic traffic is worth more than the others as they don’t rely on advertisements for their visitors. Website valuation helps you to determine the selling price of your website.
Website valuation is a complicated procedure, But thanks to Flippa we now have an online website valuation tool at our disposal. Want more information about this tool? Let’s find out. First and foremost, Flippa’s website valuation tool is completely free for everyone. Anyone can find out their website’s value using this tool. If you ask how accurate their valuation is, you will be happy to know that Flippa’s valuation could be as accurate as it can get provided you give the correct information they asked for. They use the data you provided and compare them with thousands of other similar websites sold on Flippa. This makes their valuation accurate.
Buying on Flippa
What are the benefits of buying an already established website or digital asset? To begin with, it would save you a lot of money and time of building it from scratch. Second, it comes at a relatively low cost. Third, you will already have established visitors to the website even before buying it. On top of that, when you choose to buy on Flippa, things will get a little more comfortable.
You can directly go to the listings from the home page itself. Remember the categories we mentioned above in the Flippa website section? When you choose the category of the digital asset that you wish to buy, you will find the listings of that particular web property under that section. You can browse through the listings and find the one that matches your requirements and preferences. You can also search for the asset you need on the search bar you find on Flippa’s home page. It also allows you to filter your search results by adding a few more specifications about your requirements.
After you find the website or domain you want to buy, you can enter your bid in the specified space. The sale then happens through the auction method. Otherwise, you can also buy the website or domain or app directly, you can buy it through the Buy it Now option which lets you buy the site immediately at a slightly higher price. If you like the website specifics and do not wish to take a chance of losing it you can opt to Buy it on the spot. But, one thing you need to be cautious about while buying on Flippa is that, since anyone can list on Flippa, you might find a lot of fraud listing that, might cost you a lot of money if you fall for them. So you need to be careful while buying digital assets.
Selling on Flippa
Right on its home page, you will find a ‘Sell Now’ Option, clicking on which you will be directed to the page where you can choose the type of asset you wish to sell. You will be asked to choose how you want to sell the asset, directly or through a broker. You will be guided through the whole process of selling by Flippa. You will be needed to answer a few questions related to the website or app or domain, like the income source, monetizing mode, whether there are any things that the property buyer should know about the asset, possible profits and losses and other important information about the property.
You should also verify the information you have provided like income source by linking it to Quickbook (or you can also fill it yourself), upload a profit & loss account that the buyers can check. You can also connect your ad to Google analytics to let the buyers have an idea of your websites’ traffic. After the verification is done, you will be asked to enter a sale price, where you get to choose between having an auction or a fixed price sale. In general, Fixed Price Sale is offered for high priced websites and businesses. When determining the selling price, it helps if you get website valuation from Flippa’s website valuation tool. This way you will know how much your website is worth and can determine exactly how much you are willing to sell your property for.
Flippa’s Pricing
When discussing Flippa’s pricing details we need to have a look at several things like the fees they collect and the packages they offer. Let’s visit each of them one by one.
Flippa currently is offering 4 listing packages
- The Standard package costs $29 and is valid for 3 months. The plan offers Standard reach and discounted escrow. The package also includes data integrations, Marketplace listing and same day support along with add on options of $99 NDA and Confidentiality, $99 legal templates, $99 optimization reports.
- The Enhanced package costs $299 and has no fixed duration, which means as long as you are selling actively, your listings will remain live. With the enhanced package, you will get free escrow and two times more reach than the Standard package. The package also includes weekly insight reports, category page showcase, higher visibility along with all the features that are offered in a standard package. You also get the same add on options as the Standard plan.
- The Premium package costs $399 and has no fixed duration. With this package, you will get 4 times more reach and free escrow. This package offers all the features from the Enhanced package along with Paid Buyer targeting, Social Media Promotion, Dedicate Flippa agent and Web display advertising. Except for the $99 legal templates, the other add on options listed in the enhanced package are free with the premium package.
- The Ultimate package costs $499 and has no fixed duration. The package offers 8 times more reach and free escrow along with features like Homepage Promotion, Blog Post Feature, Daily newsletter feature, Third-party syndication, custom video feature and all the other features included with the Premium package. The add on options that are listed in other packages are completely free with the Ultimate package.
Now moving on to the fees collected on Flippa, Flippa collects listing fees as well as success fees.
The success fee for the properties that are sold from
- $1 to $49,999 is 10% of the sale price
- $50,000 to $99,999 is 7.5% of the sale price
- $100,000 to $2M is 5% of the sale price (if you choose to sell with a broker the success fee is 15%)
- Sales above $2M goes under the VIP program and the discussions related are taken care of by the VIP team.
The listings fees on Flippa differ based on the type of asset. The listing fees are as follows
- For Online businesses and established websites, the listing fee is $49
- For Starter/template websites, the listing fee is $15
- For Domains, the listing fee is $10
- For Android and iOS apps, the listing fee is $15
Due Diligence
Due Diligence is a verification service offered by Flippa. With this service you can assess and verify the websites and digital assets.
A Red Flag report costs $1000 and is recommended for the assets that cost between $0 to $30,000. This covers an analysis period of 1 year and focuses on identifying and reporting high level risks & opportunities and limited financial and traffic information. There will be no verification of the source documents.
Standard report costs $1500 and is recommended for the listings between $30,000 – $ 200,000. This report covers an analysis period of two years and includes everything in the Red Flag report. Along with that, it also includes enhanced traffic and financial information. It also includes selected sale verification and also cost-related transactions for a period of one month.
Enhanced report costs $2000 and is recommended for the listings above $200,000. This report covers an analysis period of 3 years and includes all those which are part of the Standard report. The information the seller provided will be checked against the source documents with enhanced coverage. It also includes an overview of the key trends and industry trends. The cost related transactions are also included in this report for a period of three months.
Tips for Buyers and Sellers
For Buyers
- When Buying on Flippa, search for the businesses that are two years old or more. This could help you in finding legitimate sites and by two years the business would have already passed its crucial period and you can make your choice by looking at the website traffic, its performance, organic visitors and many more. Sometimes you might miss out on great start-ups when you choose to do this, but at the same time you will save yourself from many scam business listings too.
- Looking for a business that you can run helps you manage it well. You can look out for businesses that match your skill or interest, so that when you buy it you can run it successfully. For example, if you are interested in writing, you could maybe try and buy a blogging site rather than building one.
- Study the businesses valuation multiples and make sure you use the most recent data (12 months) while calculating yearly earnings.
- If you are buying a tech company you should also acknowledge the threats that these companies are prone to. If you are not familiar with technology, get someone to help with technical issues.
- Check the seller’s history to find out if they have sold before. If they sold before and have a good transaction history, you might proceed with the listing provided you like it.
- Utilise the escrow option on the platform. This ensures you that your money is safe until you are satisfied with the product.
For Sellers
- Update the website before you sell it so that the buyers will find it appealing. Make sure you make the interface mobile friendly as most people login to the website through their mobile phones.
- It helps if you include some freebies with your listing, this could attract a few potential buyers.
- Be a reasonable seller. Listing your price in line with the buyers expectation could get more buyers to be interested in your sale. Do not start off with a high price thinking that the price will come down with negotiations. Many buyers would skip the listings if they think they are not reasonable. So quote a reasonable price and stick to it.
- If any buyers contact you, answer all their queries patiently. While doing so you can also provide additional information about the asset, which could make them close the deal. Being responsive could boost the sale considerably.
- If you are listing a website listing the SEO expertise, email list, Social media followers could help you close the deal faster provided they are desirable.
Pros and Cons of Flippa
Pros
- One of the main advantages that Flippa has is that with Flippa you can buy and sell at any price, unlike several other platforms that only allow the sale if it is in a five digit figure. On Flippa you can sell and buy a business of any size.
- Flippa’s easy to use interface is its biggest advantage. Their interface is very user friendly and you can never get lost in their website. You can find anything you need in just a couple of clicks.
- The platform offers buyers protection to reassure the buyers of the completion of the deal.
- The platform has a large audience, which is an advantage when it comes to finding potential buyers and sellers.
- The platform also provides an escrow service where the money is held by them until both the buyer and seller are satisfied with the transaction. This could help the buyers by reassuring them that their money is safe until they are satisfied with the product and could save them from falling prey to scam deals.
- Flippa offers different filtering options to the buyers which helps them search through the listings quickly and find the listings they might like.
- Flippa also has a Sell with Broker option, which could be a lot of help to sellers as the brokers exactly know what to do and who to target and more importantly they know how to sell your asset. This option is a relief for a lot of sellers on the platform.
Cons
- Listings on Flippa are not verified by the platform. The seller can list literally anything as a proof and the platform doesn’t verify it.
- Since Flippa doesn’t do verification on its own, the platform is prone to have more scam listings that could lead to the buyers losing money on them.
- If you are looking for earning opportunities on Flippa, you would most likely get disappointed as it is more of a business for sale kind of platform.
- You don’t know if the sale will be completed on Flippa as the buyers sometimes don’t complete the transaction. There is no guarantee that the said sale is going to be complete until the buyer pays the whole price and the assets are transferred to them, but you might have already lost some money without any guarantee as you pay commission to Flippa before itself.
- There is no privacy on Flippa as to how much money one is making on Flippa as all the transactions are listed on their listing page. So anyone can easily access that information and get to know about them.
- Since you will be buying and selling online on Flippa, there are more risks involved with it.
In Conclusion
We already know that Flippa is an online marketplace for web properties. It has several happy customers who are satisfied with Flippa. To get into Flippa one can either build a platform from scratch and sell it after it reaches a particular level of traffic or you can buy a platform and hold it for a few years as it keeps earning you money or You can do Flipping, where you buy an asset and hold it for some time and sell it for a higher price later when its demand increases. Whatever it is that you use Flippa for, once you get a hold of the platform, there is no going back. And you will see how great of a platform it is. If you want more information about the platform you can check out the website for yourself.
