For some Internet users, finding well-built dropshipping websites for sale and buying one from the previous owner seems like an easy way to start a thriving enterprise. Others, at the same time, consider it to be a risky decision.
Why entrepreneurs put their own dropshipping business up for sale
It’s not uncommon to see a dropshipping business for sale on a site or forum. A person sees an ad for a ready-made dropshipping website for sale and immediately thinks that something is deeply wrong with the store.
“Why, indeed, would the owner say goodbye to a reliable source of income? The store brings no money, I guess, and the seller just wants to get rid of it by tricking some lazy and inexperienced buyer.”
This might be the case, of course, and this is exactly why you need to be really cautious while buying a ‘second-hand’ store (read the necessary rules below!)
But, even if a store runs perfectly and looks promising from the financial point of view, the owner still might want to sell it. There are numerous reasons for it:
- Immediate profit
Some owners treat their dropshipping stores as long-term investments. Instead of getting continuous (yet moderate) profit from processing clients’ orders, they receive a huge one-time revenue from selling the whole store to a different person.
Indeed, if a store attracts lots of visitors, sees a stable flow of orders, and has high Google rankings, it has an incredible potential in terms of further growth. With wise management, the owner can turn a store like this into the main source of self-generated income. Understanding this, the current store owner can find a person who would love to get an established well-performing store and sell the site with a reasonable profit margin.
- Growth opportunity
Through selling an already existing store, the previous owner gets the financial resources to support his/her further undertakings. Maybe, the store seller wants to try a different niche, or desires to launch a store with a different type of layout and design, etc.
It is a common scenario for recent newcomers. They order a ready-made store and don’t pay much attention to the niche choice. They get a good-looking store with stable performance but don’t feel any emotional attachment to the niche. As you can guess, they lose their interest in such a ‘random’ store quite quickly.
From this perspective, by putting a dropship website on sale, the owner gets an opportunity to grow professionally and to test alternative business opportunities.
- Time savings
As we can learn from the experience of our client Alex, the time factor has a solid impact on the decisions made by a dropshipping business owner. In Alex’s case, it was challenging to keep up the outstanding performance across all the 5 stores he had. So, in order not to do a job of poor quality, he decided to sell one of his profitable online stores and to focus on the remaining sites.
- ‘Spring cleaning’
Lack of time is not the only thing that can motivate the owner to resell the store. Sometimes, entrepreneurs get really excited about dropshipping business (which is perfectly understandable :)), buy or develop several stores at once… and find out that they now have more sites than necessary.
Our client Otto, for example, admits that he is ‘too lazy’ to work on all of his stores. That’s why he doesn’t pay attention to half of them. In this situation, indeed, the best decision is to sell these stores to someone else.
Some people, like our other respondent Daniel, solve the ‘overstocking’ issue by hiring virtual assistants. They are responsible for minor managerial tasks and customer support. But, as you can guess, it means additional expenses. So, if the owner wants to cut down the operational costs, the obvious decision is to put some of the ecommerce websites on sale.
In other words, if you see that a ready-made store is sold by the current owner, don’t immediately assume that it’s a fraud. Chances are the store owner is just rethinking his or her business strategy. So, maybe, you can heavily benefit from it and start a business with a ready-to-go store.
A dropshipping business for sale: pros & cons
Benefits of buying an online business
Many companies, including AliDropship, can build a dropshipping website according to your instructions. As a result, you will get a unique and fully functioning shop. So, why would anyone want to buy an online business from someone else instead of building a completely new website?
Well, a dropshipping business for sale has at least several benefits.
- First of all, you don’t have to build your website on your own, which saves you a lot of time. Even if you know how to do it, it’ll take several days or even weeks if you’re full of ideas! You’ll have to create the store, set up payment gateways, all the necessary plugins and add-ons, import products, etc.
- Second, you don’t have to find, import, and test products. An established ecommerce website for sale already has an inventory of goods. And if the seller doesn’t lie about the revenue the store makes, probably these products have proved popular. Of course, you will still have to find new products later (to refresh the offer). But it’ll take much less time and effort.
- Compared to new businesses, an established one already has a clear target audience, a social media presence, and perhaps even a certain number of returning customers. You could say that online stores for sale are more or less known brands – unlike completely new businesses.
- Naturally, you can launch such a website and start making money much faster compared to developing a business from scratch.
Drawbacks of buying an online business
Nevertheless, there’s also a number of cons. It doesn’t mean the whole idea’s not worth it. But one has to fully understand what he can and can’t get when seeing a dropshipping business for sale.
- First, you can’t get the business of your dream. Since it was made by someone else, the site’s design, name, and selection of products will be different from what you may want. If it doesn’t bother you, then no problem!
- The business you purchase may turn out to have reputation issues. Of course, the seller will most likely try to hide this information from you. And after the purchase, the business may require a lot of changes.
- And finally, if you have little or no experience in promoting and running a dropshipping business, you may find it really challenging to keep this business afloat. A business never makes money on its own. It requires proper control. So, you may want to either start from scratch and learn everything step by step or find an affordable dropshipping business for sale. In this case, you won’t spend a fortune and will still get a ready-to-go business for your experiments.