Selling an e-commerce website is not that difficult of a task if you know what you are supposed to do. If I wanted to sell my website, I would make a complete checklist of all the things that I need to ensure before I put it on the market. This is something that you need to provide as well if you want to get a fair price for your website.
In case you do not know what you have to do, here is a 5 step guide on how to sell your e-commerce website for a good price.
- Preparing the website UI
- Checking for bugs
- Organizing your customer data
- Organizing your inventory and financials
- Consulting a valuation expert/firm
1. Preparing the website UI
The first thing that a customer or a potential buyer for your website will notice is the website’s user-interface or UI. It is one of the most important aspects of the website and can make or break your entire business.
The UI should not be so bland that it shows the lack of creativity. It should also avoid being extra creative, as such websites can be difficult to navigate through. The UI should be sleek yet simple. It should keep the end-user in mind, and always target a comfortable user-experience. All the website features should be easily accessible, especially features like signing up or signing in, placing an order, searching for a product, going through the product categories, making a payment, and so on.
An e-commerce platform with a poor UI will put off any potential website buyer. The thought of having to re-do the UI might make them suspend the purchase.
2. Checking for bugs
Say that you have a clean UI. The design is perfect, all the features are easily accessible, and the website is entirely responsive no matter what type of screen it is being displayed on. All in all, your buyer will have no complaints regarding the e-commerce website’s UI.
However, upon further inspection of the website, they find a few bugs. For instance, the checkout button does not work if you do not have a certain number of products, or the page crashes every time you delete a product from the cart. These bugs can be severe deal-breakers. Problems with the UI can be solved with a little effort, but no one will want to buy a website that has these kinds of bugs.
So before selling, check for bugs in your website. Run tests of all sorts, and if necessary, push your e-commerce platform to its limits.
3. Organizing your customer data
Email marketing plays a big role in the modern e-commerce industry. By collecting your customers’ emails, you can keep them up-to-date with your platform’s latest products and upgrades.
When a buyer sets their eyes on your website, you can be sure that they are going to ask for your customer data as well. This data includes their email addresses, purchase history, purchase frequency, and so on. By taking this data, the buyer can immediately get to work on their business plan and start running marketing campaigns via email as well.
Keep the data ready in an excel or CSV file format. This will allow your buyer to easily check the various data points and plan his actions accordingly.
4. Organizing your inventory and financials
If you do not have a product in stock, remove it from your inventory. You do not want the platform to be filled with products that are not in stock. Also, while you are at it, you should consider rearranging certain parts of the inventory. You might want to check the category types, images, and product descriptions. While checking the images, try to optimize them so that their presence will not affect the website’s loading speed.
Apart from this, you should also consider getting your financials in order, mainly if you have managed the platform on your own this whole time. Take help from a third-party accountant or agency. Find out the annual growth rate, sales revenue from the past 2 or 3 years, income statement, cash flow statement, and so on.
5. Consulting a valuation expert/firm
Get a third-party appraiser for a fair valuation of your website. They can help you realize your platform’s real value, and you do not have to settle for complete guesswork. These evaluations are provided to you based on the website’s traffic, inventory, technology being used, financials, etc.
Once they complete a thorough valuation, you will see that the price for your website is much higher than you originally anticipated.