I am selling an online business my company made.  So why is this not in the "For Sale" section of the forums?  Well, it is not for sale quite yet.  I am now just wanting to get some advice for how to go about doing it (Ebay, WHT, etc..), what to say about it, how to present it and so on.

WHAT IT IS:
The site is http://sharebucks.com and it is an affiliate program network just like cj.com or linkshare.com.  It has existed about 1.5 years now.  Most of the time it has been in development.

POPULARITY:
The web site itself teters between PR4 and PR5.  Currently all pages are PR4.  The site is getting more popular.  This month already it has 294 unique visitors, compared to 147 in August and 230 in July. There are two types of members - Affiliates and Merchants.  The site currently has over 160 affiliates and 18 merchants.

WHY SELLING IT:
Basically my company is imvolved in the web hosting and development business.  We needed a good affiliate solution, but found that the current choices out there had shortcomings.  CJ and LinkShare were WAY TOO EXPENSIVE and others just did not have the options and configurability we required.  I searched high and low for the best script to use as a framework.  The cost for it was $3000.  It was successfully implemented into the sharebucks.com site and it has been modified slightly recently to give better functionality to the users.  I would estimate that work to be at least $1000.

My current business takes all my time and furthering sharebucks.com would take some time on the phone with the merchants walking them through the system and such.  I personally am not comfortable on phones doing business calls, additionally I do not want to take away from the attention that my current business requires.

$$$
I am wanting to get at least $4000 for this business.

SELLING DETAILS
I was thinking of a tile for the listing.  How about...
[INDENT]Established TurnKey Marketing Website Business[/INDENT]

I guess I could make a chart of the earning potential and different ways the site can make $$.  I have seen other listings on ebay and such that do that.

Anyway, I would appreciate any advice or help you guys have for me.  Im sure there are a ton of info left out here, so ask away.


Thanks

I suppose potential buyers would have a lot of questions about the site and business.  I put together a little FAQ to try to answer all anticipated questions.  If you can think of any others, please let me know.



[INDENT]================================================
FAQ:
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Q. How does this site make money?

A. Income is generated from the deposits of Merchants.  You charge merchants a percentage when a credit is given to an Affiliate.  It is currently set at 30% and that can easily be changed to whatever you want.  You can also charge other fees (Application fee, monthly minimum, etc.) which are very common in this type of business.  If and how much is up to you.  This business also attracts many requests for banner and other creative designs for the merchants.


Q. When a deposit is made, where do the funds go?

A. The funds go to your bank merchant account or paypal account.  If you accept mail-in payments, you can manually deposit those to your bank account.


Q. What kind of income is possible with this business?

A. The income potential is unlimited.  Other existing businesses like this make a LOT of money.  The more service you provide for your merchants the happier they will be and more likely to make deposits.  For example, let\'s say your average merchant makes a $200 deposit 5 times a year.

10 Merchants = $3,000/yr
50 Merchants = $15,000/yr
200 Merchants = $60,000/yr
and so on...


Q. Do I need to keep track of all the credits and debits of the transactions that are made?

A. No, the system does this for you automatically and will generate reports for you to view.


Q. What equipment do I need to run this business?

A. You will need a computer with internet access.  Thats all that is required.  If you wish to operate using telephone and fax as contact forms then that is your decision.


Q. What technical knowledge do I need to run this business?

A. Technical knowledge is helpful if you want to make certain changes to the software, but it is not necessary.  All of the technical work is done for you and is tested to be working.


Q. What overhead expenses can I expect?

A. The only expenses you can expect are for the domain name and web hosting.  We can provide those for you or you can choose your own host and/or registrar.  I estimate no more than $150 a year for these things.


Q. I want to change the look and design of the site.  Is that possible?

A. Yes, If you are familiar with designing websites, changing the look of the site would be very easy.  The backend of the system would remain the same?


Q. How can I get the business off the ground and attract potential users?

A. The business has been operating for a little while already and already has about 16 Merchants and over 160 affiliates.  You can use your current affiliates to do a campaign for ShareBucks itself.  Previously we did a Pay-per-click campaign that was very successful!  The site itself teters between a Google pagerank 4 and 5.  At this time it is a 4.  All the pages are PR4 which is very rare and means that good search engine traffic is already flowing in.[/INDENT]

Thanks for catching that!
 

UPDATE:

This site has not been sold and is still for sale and generating cash flow.  PM me if interested.