developed AntiqueClocksPriceGuide.com, has low-mid $XX,XXX yearly revenue

[jsavage]

Great revenue generating niche!

AntiqueClocksPriceGuide.com http://www.antiqueclockspriceguide.com founded in 1999; well established, year over year growth, for more than past five years ranked #1 organic search for Google keyword "antique clocks" and many other related terms.

Currently 46,000+ visitors/mo (36,000 absolute uniques) and 700,000 monthly page views, average 15+ page views per visit and 7 minute per visit average (very sticky!). More than 20,000 pages of info. Operated by just two people, me and my co-founder.

Subscription fees for premium service generate consistent yearly income in mid+ $xx,xxx plus low $xx,xxx in Adsense rev. all with very low overhead. We don't pay for any advertising; all traffic comes from organc search results and good incoming links. Some ongoing maintenance to add content each year, not much time required; we have developed automated routines to scrape and parse data to add to our database of clock values. We can train to operate or will continue to update content and provide tech support on a contract basis if desired.

We can provide AuthorizeNet reports, tax returns, Google analytics, etc. to verify income and site stats.

This site has tremendous upside potential; realistic target is low $xxx,xxx per year revenue. We are 97% done with a site redsign for a better user experience, with added features, easier navigation and newer technology.

You can see the mostly functional redesign at http://75.144.22.196/freeway/default.php - caveat: the redesign is still in development and has not yet replaced our current site design.

As part of our site redesign we are about to implement non-Adsense advertising program for businesses wishing to reach this niche market. Even a low advertiser rate of $1.75 to $5.50 CPM mix could double yearly revenue stream in pretty short order.

Reason for selling: we have developed software for a completely different type of online business that we wish to focus on. Plus I'd like to cash out my original investment that carried us through the first 5 years of operation before we turned profitable.

There is no pressure for us to sell, only a desire to move on to concentrate on other things. Will consider offers in the area of 6X our current yearly revenue.

Serious inquiries only!! I'm not going to waste time with tire-kickers. If you think you can broker this site or are considering buying it yourself, please send me a private message. I will not respond to replies posted on this forum

Please be prepared to provide a verifiable track record and a way for me to verify your identity if you want to demonstate a serious interest.

 

[dellspromotion]

first of all provide a proof of revenue.
Second provide proof of traffic.
Third if you post something on forum you better reply here.
Fourth, design is really sucks. I would not pay even a 10c for it.

 

[jsavage]

As I stated in my post, I'll be happy to provide proof of revenue and traffic for serious inquiries.
As for design: just goes to show that if you provide a good service at a reasonable price, particularly in a niche that no one else serves in the same way, it doesn't matter so much what the design is as much as the quality of the content.

 

[kspd]

Wow that is a bit harsh Dellspromotion.
A good design always helps, but content is always most important. He targeted a niche and did it successfully.
He also mentioned a new design which is mostly complete and it looks quite nice. imho.

Clocks are not my biz so this is not something I am interested in but it seems like a great opportunity for anyone who decides to take it on.

 

[dellspromotion]

I'm sorry. But seriously. When somebody says do not ask me questions on forum, PM only - usually it is the guy who wants to rip somebody off. Take a look a DP forum. There is a lot of posts that proof my point.
Bu I think I was wrong about this thread. Sorry.

 

[jsavage]

Hey guys (and girls?): it looks like I got off on the wrong foot with the PM request. This is my first time posting on the forum. And I haven't read many posts here either. Many of the ones I did read asked for responses by PM, so I thought that was the thing to do to screen out tirekickers. Sorry if that gave the wrong impression.

So anyway, tell me what is so bad about asking for a private reply?

I'd be glad to answer any reasonable questions. It's just that AntiqueClocksPriceGuide.com is a going business and I have some year long subscribers that I don't want to spook by letting them know I'm thinking of selling the site. I take my responsibility to them seriously and don't want to lose any ongoing business. Maybe it was a mistake to post here in the first place. Most of the posts about sites for sale have seemed pretty iffy to me, to tell the truth. Maybe I would see something different in the "exclusive" postings, but I haven't seen anything offered for sale so far here that has an substantial track record or strong revenue.

So, educate me. Point me to the posts where people are selling a business with legitimate, substantial income. Point me to the posts where anyone has given even half the info I have, I'd like to see them so I feel like I won't be wasting my time posting here.

And ask me any questions you like if you are genuinely interested. I appreciated kspd's comments; dellspromotion's comments struck me as just the type of response that I didn't want to end up having to reply to on the forum. I thought I gave a lot of substantive info about the site, some of which could be checked against publicly available statistics if you took the trouble. And it's obvious if you visit the site that a site with an archive of 20,000+ descriptions, photos and prices, as well as tons of other info on the subject, gathered over ten years, is not a scam.

To say the design is not the greatest.... ok, I agree; it was a lot better 6 years ago when it was a new design for us. Now it's dated and we've dragged our feet in upgrading the look and user experience. But it works for us and our subscribers. And the new design will be much better. Not everything has to be a cutting edge flash based bells and whistles site to make good money. Take a look at Amazon's design - no fancy image maps, flash, avant guarde cutting edge stuff - mainly just a lot of simple text links that any browser can see and that loads fast. Works for them pretty well.

C'mon Dells - are you so cynical that you have to say you wouldn't pay 10 cents for a site that, in this past month (January) brought in more than $7,000 in subscription fees and Adsense? What's up with that kind of comment?

 

[David G]

I think the problem with the harsh response was that many members here are not nearly as profitable as you and your money-making clock website so they find it hard to believe the site can be so successful.

Congrats.

Hey guys (and girls?): it looks like I got off on the wrong foot with the PM request. This is my first time posting on the forum. And I haven't read many posts here either. Many of the ones I did read asked for responses by PM, so I thought that was the thing to do to screen out tirekickers. Sorry if that gave the wrong impression.

So anyway, tell me what is so bad about asking for a private reply?

I'd be glad to answer any reasonable questions. It's just that AntiqueClocksPriceGuide.com is a going business and I have some year long subscribers that I don't want to spook by letting them know I'm thinking of selling the site. I take my responsibility to them seriously and don't want to lose any ongoing business. Maybe it was a mistake to post here in the first place. Most of the posts about sites for sale have seemed pretty iffy to me, to tell the truth. Maybe I would see something different in the "exclusive" postings, but I haven't seen anything offered for sale so far here that has an substantial track record or strong revenue.

So, educate me. Point me to the posts where people are selling a business with legitimate, substantial income. Point me to the posts where anyone has given even half the info I have, I'd like to see them so I feel like I won't be wasting my time posting here.

And ask me any questions you like if you are genuinely interested. I appreciated kspd's comments; dellspromotion's comments struck me as just the type of response that I didn't want to end up having to reply to on the forum. I thought I gave a lot of substantive info about the site, some of which could be checked against publicly available statistics if you took the trouble. And it's obvious if you visit the site that a site with an archive of 20,000+ descriptions, photos and prices, as well as tons of other info on the subject, gathered over ten years, is not a scam.

To say the design is not the greatest.... ok, I agree; it was a lot better 6 years ago when it was a new design for us. Now it's dated and we've dragged our feet in upgrading the look and user experience. But it works for us and our subscribers. And the new design will be much better. Not everything has to be a cutting edge flash based bells and whistles site to make good money. Take a look at Amazon's design - no fancy image maps, flash, avant guarde cutting edge stuff - mainly just a lot of simple text links that any browser can see and that loads fast. Works for them pretty well.

C'mon Dells - are you so cynical that you have to say you wouldn't pay 10 cents for a site that, in this past month (January) brought in more than $7,000 in subscription fees and Adsense? What's up with that kind of comment?

 

[jsavage]

Thanks. I'm guessing the biggest mistake domainers make is thinking it is going to be much easier to make big $$ that it turns out to be. Ryan and I worked 7 days a week, 8-10 hours a day, for the first 3 years, before we finally figured out our a** from a hole in the ground. In 1999 the webmaster tools were much less sophisticated; SEO was in its infancy, good analytics were practically nil or very expensive, web dev software was primitive compared to today...

there are so many tool that domainers have today and so much hype out there about making big bucks fast that I think the aspect of putting in a lot of time and attention to detail are overlooked. Hey, in 2000 we thought we should be able to make a million bucks in a year, that's how new and hot the Net was.