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Seller Profile

Username:
jbee (0%)
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E-commerce site, 6 y.o. with 3,500 customers

Self defense and home security products niche

  • URL: http://www.firsthomesecurity.com/
  • Established: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 14:00:00 GMT
  • Uniques/Month: 10,000
  • Page views/month: 25,000
  • Monthly Revenue: 2000
  • Google Pagerank: 3
  • Listed: Mon, 02 Jun 2008 18:09:03 GMT

Description:

I'm selling my business which I've been running for 6 years. The reason is I don't have time to promote it.

My highest revenue was in 2005 (Yahoo stats show $57,000.00 not including phone and mail orders), then I had my third child (I'm a

female) and just don't have enough time and desire to promote the site.

If you could outsource the promotion, running the site doesn't take much time at all.
You get an order and submit it to a drop-shipper through your online account - takes 2 min per order. Then later you receive UPS

tracking and input it into an order. That's it.

Although I do provide a toll free number I don't get many calls, but if the traffic increases, you can expect more calls. The buyer will

need to change the number anyway or decide not to have a phone order line at all. Same thing with emails, not many.

I use two drop-ship companies. They both are very good in resolving any issues with order delivery (like UPS lost the package or

delivered to the wrong address), they just ship another order while dealing with UPS.

One drop-shipper charges $50 per year ($99 per 3 years) to have an account with them and also $2.50 for each order shipped. I

added this drop-shipper because they have some stun guns my first company doesn't have.
 
Another drop-ship company is free to join  and also provides a phone number for technical questions for my customers.

Returns: This year so far I had 3 returns. Last year 10 returns.

Chargebacks: I only had four "true" chargebacks during all these 6 years. "True" means fraudulent orders. The other chargebacks

people just forgot they ordered and after calling them the disputes were resolved.

I have a merchant account but payment can be taken by Paypal as well.

After deciding to sell the store, I had to transfer it from Yahoo because Yahoo doesn't allow the change of ownership. I did it in mid

April, you can see my Yahoo stats end at this time.

I don't rank well in SE right now. Do adwords. Installed convertion tracking in April and accoring to it got 7 orders, conversion rate

3.3%.

Expenses:
Hosting - $19.95 p/m
Business phone (Vonage) - $19.00
Toll free # - $6-$10
AdWords - $70-$90
Merchant account fees (depends on the sales volume) - last month was $85.00

Phone orders: 2-6 a month, depends on traffic.
Mail orders: 1-2 a month.

Way to increase revenue: add more products. I don't have all the products my drop-shippers have. There are many more. For

example, security cameras.

Customer base: more than 3500. I have all contact information and will transfer it to a buyer.

Revenue 2008:
January: $2,833.00
February: $3,107.00
March: $ 1,938.00
April:  $2,438.00
May: $1,298.00

Net income:
2007 - $13,500.00
2008 Jan.-May. - $ 5,560.00

Orders I got after moving site from Yahoo:
http://www.firsthomesecurity.com/auction/Apr.-May.htm

Orders beginning 2002

http://www.firsthomesecurity.com/auction/Report.csv

http://www.firsthomesecurity.com/auction/Revenue%202003.mht

http://www.firsthomesecurity.com/auction/Revenue%202004.mht

http://www.firsthomesecurity.com/auction/Revenue%202005.mht

http://www.firsthomesecurity.com/auction/Revenue%202006.mht

http://www.firsthomesecurity.com/auction/Revenue%202007.mht

http://www.firsthomesecurity.com/auction/Revenue%202008.mht

Revenue Details:

Product sales.

Traffic Details:

68% SE

17% direct

14% referring sites

Attachments

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Questions to the Seller

  1. Posted date:
    Mon, 02 Jun 2008 19:02:23 GMT
    Actions:
    Comment ID:
    #1

    This link isn't working:
    http://www.firsthomesecurity.com/auction/Apr.-May.htm

    Posted by:
    Shpigford (40%)
    Location:
    Denver, CO
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  2. Posted date:
    Mon, 02 Jun 2008 19:54:50 GMT
    Actions:
    Comment ID:
    #2

    sorry, fixed it.

    Posted by:
    jbee (0%) (seller)
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    Message me
  3. Posted date:
    Mon, 02 Jun 2008 21:11:01 GMT
    Actions:
    Comment ID:
    #3

    What's the BIN?

    Posted by:
    Phillychzsteak (100%)
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  4. Posted date:
    Mon, 02 Jun 2008 21:16:50 GMT
    Actions:
    Comment ID:
    #4

    The revenue generated in April and May-Was it a result of AdWord Campaigns? Do you have optimized AdWord Campaign-key words etc? Will the buyer get that? Any demographic info on your clients? Is the site synchronized with your drpshipper's sites? i.e. Is adding products from your drop shipper's catalogue automatic rather than manual addition of pictures, cost and other data? Thanks.

    VL

    Posted by:
    vlabroo (0%)
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  5. Posted date:
    Mon, 02 Jun 2008 21:38:00 GMT
    Actions:
    Comment ID:
    #5

    BIN is $20,000

    Apr.-May revenue is not from Adwords. I got 29 orders in April, 16 in May and 7 out of these 45 orders were from adwords. Sorry I'm not an adwords guru, I don't know what is "optimized compaign" mean. But I will provide the keywords to the buyer. My visitors are from US, UK and Canada. I don't understand what is "synchronized with your drpshipper's sites" means. I described how I process orders. Adding products is not automatic.

    Posted by:
    jbee (0%) (seller)
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  6. Posted date:
    Mon, 02 Jun 2008 21:42:39 GMT
    Actions:
    Comment ID:
    #6

    You might want to conceal the identity of your customers on the order page you are showing.:)

    Posted by:
    psambar (60%)
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  7. Posted date:
    Mon, 02 Jun 2008 21:51:46 GMT
    Actions:
    Comment ID:
    #7

    OK, deleted the names.

    Posted by:
    jbee (0%) (seller)
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  8. Posted date:
    Mon, 02 Jun 2008 21:56:51 GMT
    Actions:
    Comment ID:
    #8

    I have setup a $20K BIN per your comment.

    -- SITEPOINT ADMIN.

    Posted by:
    Matt Mickiewicz (100%)
    Location:
    Vancouver, Canada
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  9. Posted date:
    Mon, 02 Jun 2008 22:31:45 GMT
    Actions:
    Comment ID:
    #9

    What are your profit margins? I mean the difference between the dropshipped price and sale price.

    Posted by:
    jimkarter (100%)
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  10. Posted date:
    Mon, 02 Jun 2008 22:44:49 GMT
    Actions:
    Comment ID:
    #10

    The cheapest pepper spray I sell for $10 costs me $2.50. For stun guns it's $20-$40 difference. I keep my margins not less than 100% for almost all my products.

    Posted by:
    jbee (0%) (seller)
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  11. Posted date:
    Tue, 03 Jun 2008 06:10:57 GMT
    Actions:
    Comment ID:
    #11

    Can we see some stats? referers, etc.

    Thanks

    Posted by:
    stanto (0%)
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  12. Posted date:
    Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:45:36 GMT
    Actions:
    Comment ID:
    #12

    stats:

    http://www.firsthomesecurity.com/auction/traffic-may.htm

    http://www.firsthomesecurity.com/auction/traffic.pdf

    http://www.firsthomesecurity.com/auction/visitors.pdf

    Posted by:
    jbee (0%) (seller)
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  13. Posted date:
    Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:39:44 GMT
    Actions:
    Comment ID:
    #13

    Thanks, but it would be nice to have analytics on referrers and traffic for at least the last year.
    I tend to trust analytics more than awstats.

    Posted by:
    stanto (0%)
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  14. Posted date:
    Tue, 03 Jun 2008 17:30:51 GMT
    Actions:
    Comment ID:
    #14

    My Yahoo stats from last year:

    http://www.firsthomesecurity.com/auction/Referrers-2007.htm

    http://www.firsthomesecurity.com/auction/page-views-2007.mht

    http://www.firsthomesecurity.com/auction/visitors.mht

    Posted by:
    jbee (0%) (seller)
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  15. Posted date:
    Sat, 07 Jun 2008 16:07:53 GMT
    Actions:
    Comment ID:
    #15

    Just want to clerify something. The store can be operated from the outside of the US but my dropshipper requires having a US based payment method with them.

    Posted by:
    jbee (0%) (seller)
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