- Posted by:
- astereo (60%) (seller)
- Location:
- east coast
- Private Message:
- Message me
Original E-Commerce Solution! Has made nearly 14k in 6mo!
Average of $2k/mo, huge package, little work to do
- URL: http://www.markettheme.com/
- Established: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 13:00:00 GMT
- Uniques/Month: 3,000
- Page views/month: 26,000
- Monthly Revenue (USD): 2,000
- Google Pagerank: 3
- Listed: Wed, 27 Aug 2008 11:33:22 GMT
Description:
Brief introduction to the Market Theme
The market theme is a premium Wordpress theme that was launched in late February 2008. As my first premium theme it has become very successful and has brought in revenue of $13,946.90 in 6 full months (March-August). The idea for the theme originally came about after I had done two back to back projects for clients who were both looking for ways to turn Wordpress into an ecommerce engine. Since its launch in the end of February, Market has been redesigned three times and now includes a product manager plugin as well as its own ajax shopping cart.
Why Sell?
I decided to re-write this section mainly because I am aware there is plenty of doubt as to why someone would be so interested in selling a site which has made a pretty decent amount of money and in fairly short period of time. In today's world, it's hard to find honest people, and I believe that is why many people are skeptical and are trying to find what the catch is since I am wanting to get out of the project. I am selling Market because I personally am ready to move on, begin new projects, and free up time for myself. Most importantly, I am now going to college and I am looking for "cash now" as opposed to earning it month by month through Market license sales. I did not simply wake up one day and say to myself "I need to get rid of this site before it tanks" When I originally launched this project, I already had it planned that so long as everything went well, I would list it for sale shortly before school started again. It is in no way a sign of current or future troubles for the site.
Market is far from reaching it's full revenue abilities. I did minimal advertising here and there when the site was first launched, but have done nothing in the past few months. The license sales have been prompted by how good the product is (ask any current customer), but when you consider how vast the Wordpress community is and how many people have items in which they sale, the ~200 license sales are no where near the peak. I've been asked how long Market could stay popular, and if it will continue to pull in profits like it has. I say easily. Advertise to some of the specific niches I have not put any focus on (ebay sellers, crafter's, artists, print designers, etc) and you are talking about doubling the profits if not by increasing them by even more. Market has is no way reached its max audience, so for anyone to expect to see a sharp decline and all of sudden not be making any profits is mistaken.
What you get:
With the purchase of the Market theme you will have full ownership to:
- The domain http://www.markettheme.com (expires: 3/5/2009, registered on Namecheap)
- Full rights to the theme and all 3 variations of its design (only thing I ask is that I can keep the theme / site design in my portfolio)
- Full rights to 3 variations of Markettheme.com (also powered by Wordpress)
- Full rights to Market Product Manager plugin, Paypal (market lite) plugin, and custom Ajax Cart Script.
The value of this package itself would be around $8-9,000+. You are getting two (3) site designs / themes specifically for Markettheme.com, three (3) different designs / layouts of the Market Theme (versions 1-3), a custom built Ajax Cart and a backend plugin, all custom build specifically for use with the Market Theme.
*Market Product Manager by John Kolbert (admin@simply-basic.com)
*Ajax Cart developed by Devon Parris (thecreative.d@gmail.com)
Revenue, License, and Traffic Breakdown:
Included in the attachments to the right of this post are breakdowns of each month through generated sales reports directly from Paypal. The month breakdown of revenue looks like this:
- February (3 days) – $100.25
- March – $2,034.67
- April – $3,065.93
- May – $1,836.16
- June – $1,617.49
- July - $2,706.30
- August - $2,586.10
- Total Revenue to Date: $13,946.90
- A monthly average of: $2,324.48/month (in 6 full months)
There are two types of licenses: A standard license for $55 and a developer’s license for $150.00.
The license breakdown per month is as follows. You’ll notice that while it may appear profits have been on a significant decline, the large spike in profits for April 2008 was caused by the price increase when standard and developer’s licenses increased in cost. In fact, the same amount of licenses were sold in March 2008 as in April 2008, so profits have been holding steady around $2,000 per month on average.
- February (3 days) – 3 licenses
- March – 48 Licenses
- April – 48 Licenses
- May - 32 Licenses
- June – 29 Licenses
- July - 46 Licenses
- August - 35 Licenses
- Total licenses purchased to date: 241 Licenses
The only ongoing cost is a $5/month fee to E-Junkie, which I use to help process payments and make download notification instantly. You will need to find your own host, although I will assist you in getting everything moved over.
What I'm Looking for:
I have put the asking price for Market at $31,000, with a reserve a couple thousand higher than that. Ideally I am looking for anything between the $35-50K range. I understand this may seem high, but it is the number I was quoted back a few months ago on this very site. Also, a year ago Wpdesigner was sold for somewhere in the $60k range and it's revenue was only in the $800 range. Yes, the site is now only 6 months old, but consider the size of the package you are getting and the revenue that it has already shown it is capable of making without a heavy marketing drive.
Important Update: $30,000 would take the site. I had a deal lined up which fell through on the buyers end. Please email me at hi@astereostudio.com if interested.
Revenue Details:
Selling of theme licenses. See full auction description for entire revenue rundown. Proof of revenue is in attachment which is a PDF of an exported Paypal report from Feb-June 24, as well as a csv for the rest of the time period (June 24-July 27). For privacy reasons for my customers I've removed individual names / addresses.
Traffic Details:
- Organic and Direct
- Advertisements and theme reviews
- Those interested in selling their own items without needing to learn a whole new ecommerce platform.
Attachments
-
- Thumbnail:
-
Feb - June 23 Paypal Proof
-
- Thumbnail:
-
June 23- July 27 Paypal Proof
-
- Thumbnail:
-
Market Theme - www.markettheme.com
-
- Thumbnail:
-
Market Theme - Stats (overall)
-
- Thumbnail:
-
Market Theme - Awstats (overall)
-
- Thumbnail:
-
Market 4 - Future Outline
Some common questions I've been getting in the previous last two months I've listed Market.
Q: I would require you to be on board with the next release of Market (Market 4) if I purchase the site. Is that alright?
A: I do not and will not commit to something a couple months down the road when I do not know what my work load will be like (school wise) and I do not want to commit to something I may not have time for when the time comes. Saying that, if I am not busy I will gladly serve as the lead designer of the next version of Market. If I am to busy, I will at the very least serve as a consultant to you and get you in touch with all the right people to put the pieces together for a stellar version four. To see my suggested outline for Market 4, please see the attachments above.
Q: You are asking quite a lot for a site that has been around for only a small amount of time. What gives, and how do I know that profits will continue?
A: Let me be completely honest. For the entire month of August I focused all my attention on preparing for school, working on some other sites, and cleaning up the Markettheme.com design. Promoting? I did none of it. August was the first month in which I didn't even hit the basic places I had been visiting each month such as design forums and the like. It looked (for a while) that August was going to turn out to have some abysmal sale numbers. Instead, this month has been right on par with other months. I've sold 4-5 Development licenses and currently today (August 27) with a couple days left in this month it looks like I will at least make the reported $2K figure for the month (otherwise be right under it). What I'm trying to get at is even when you ignore the site it is still naturally bringing in profits. Am I asking for a lot for a small site that has only been established for a few months? It may seem that way, but consider everything you are getting and the potential to easily make $2k/mo without any effort, as well as the possibilities of making $3,$4,or $5K if you advertise in the right places and maximize SEO.
Q: Can we talk?
A: Absolutely. I'm open to all questions, either here or via email at hi@astereostudio.com. Anything you may have on your mind, feel free to ask.