How to evaluate a new business that I am looking to buy? http://www.igorsoshkin.com

1. HOW TO EVALUATE
AN ECOMMERCE
BUSINESS AS A BUYER
AND GET THE BEST DEAL!
BY IGOR SOSHKIN

2. WHAT IS IT REALLY WORTH TO YOU?
• Sale Price = NET PROFIT x 0.3, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.5 or what?
– Answer is to each its own
• Facebook is valued at 80 X Net Profit
• Same business can be valued at .5 or 2 or 10 to different buyers
• Market value should be based on you and not what the seller claims it to be
– NET Revenue – The actual owner salary would be NET Profit minus
all expenses excluding owner salary
• Are you looking to Replace your current Job
• Are you looking to Invest in order to sell it for more money

3. WHAT IS IT REALLY WORTH TO YOU?
– Do you see a short term or long term growth opportunity?
• How fast can you make the money back?
• What will be the profit if you sell it in one year versus the amount of work you
will put in?
• Where is the traffic coming from and will it continue?
– If traffic is organic, will it continue to stay in its position?
– Who did the SEO for the owner? (So you can re-use them)
– If traffic is paid, will the owner give you the account with the
campaigns?

4. WHAT IS IT REALLY WORTH TO YOU?
• How many Suppliers and what are the discounts?
– How many suppliers does the owner deal with?
– Compare discounts that the owner gets versus current competition
and evaluate the risk of more competitors coming into the market
– Will owner keep the original supplier account or will the account
be transferred to you? If they keep the original will the discounts
be transferred?
– How much of the business was drop shipped? The part that wasn’t
drop shipped are you ready to handle it? Do you want to handle it?

5. MEASURING GROWTH OPPORTUNITY

6. MEASURING GROWTH OPPORTUNITY
• STEP 1 - AWARENESS (MARKETPLACES/CROSS CHANNELS)
– Did seller list on eBay? What is the opportunity (Use Terapeak.com)
– Did seller list on Amazon? What is the opportunity (Competition on
Amazon vs. demand using Keywordspy.com)
– Did seller syndicate with Google Shopping, The Find, Bing Shopping
– Did seller use Adwords (use Spyfu.com to monitor this)
– Does seller have organic SEO? How Much according to Spyfu.com
– Did the seller conduct any kind of email marketing campaign
– Did the seller do any kind of social media marketing

7. MEASURING GROWTH OPPORTUNITY

8. MEASURING GROWTH OPPORTUNITY
STEP 2 - WEBSITE OPTIMIZATION (WEBSITE ITSELF)
FOR MORE INFORMATION GOTO
www.bit.ly/convertbetter

9. MEASURING GROWTH OPPORTUNITY
• STEP 3 – CLOSE SALE (SALES FUNNEL AND SALES STAFF)
– Was the seller available on the phone during business hours
– Was the seller using a proactive live chat to engage with visitors
– Was the seller actively monitoring forums using Google Alerts to
reply to questions (you can see if seller has incoming links from
forums using Majestic SEO > Referring Domains)
– Was the seller answering the emails on time
– Was the seller doing the customer service or did he have workers
• If workers were they experienced or oversea workers with heavy accents?
– Is the seller a good closer (based on his business selling skills you
can tell)

10. HOW IMPORTANT IS THE REPUTATION?
• DAMAGE CONTROL
– What if the website has bad feedback?
– How much work is required to clean it up
• Bad feedback is no a deal breaker, it is a leverage for you to negotiate a better
price because you need to go in and do damage control by explaining to new
customers that this was a previous owner and its under new ownership
– For More Tips on Damage Control visit -
https://bitly.com/googleOP

11. TECHNOLOGY USED FOR THE SITE
• What platform is being used for the business?
• What kind of reviews does the platform have?
• How easy is it to migrate to another shopping cart
platform?
• How much maintenance is required to update the website?
• Is the seller a webmaster doing his own website updates or
does he outsource to someone? How will you handle it?

12. TECHNOLOGY RECOMMENDATION
• I recommend Shopping Cart Elite
(www.shoppingcartelite.com)
– Feature Rich Website
– Full User Friendly CRM System
– Very easy to migrate from the old platform
– Retain Ranking
– Conversion features such as
• Price Control
• Visitor Generated SEO
• Using content to create Blog Network
• Visitor Behavior Analytics
• eBay, Amazon, Google Shopping, The Find, Bing Shopping syndication
– TO LEARN MORE ABOUT SCE GOTO: www.bit.ly/scemoreinfo

13. TECHNOLOGY RECOMMENDATION
• EXAMPLES OF SITES ON SHOPPING CART ELITE
– www.customwheelsntires.com (wheels)
– www.allstartire.com (wheels)
– www.rnrwheels.com (custom homepage)
– www.sudburytirezandwheelz.com (tires)
– www.coopscustoms.com (auto parts)
– www.remusexhaustshop.com (auto parts)
– www.autoaccessorystore.com (auto parts)
– www.custommaxima.com (niche vehicle store)
– www.veneerz.com (custom homepage)
– www.hangerdiva.com (clothing)
– www.wellbeinggps.com (supplements)
– www.atomiksupplements.ca (supplements)
– www.portasigns.com (signs)
– www.powerssecurity.com (security)
– www.russiatourtravel.com (service)
– www.ogcpafirm.om (accounting)
– www.westernsoundcharters.com (boating)
– www.efurnitureny.com (furniture)

14. OPERATIONS OF A BUSINESS
• You might be planning to run the business alone, which is
fine, but depending on how big the business is and how fast
you want it to grow will depend on your team and how
productive you can be.
• I created a chart showing all possible tasks an ecommerce
business should have. Of course some have less priority
than others, but when I ran my multi million dollar
ecommerce retail business, I had all of these covered.

15. OPERATIONS OF A BUSINESS
FOR MORE INFORMATION GOTO
www.bit.ly/ecommerceoperation

16. TIPS FOR STARTUP EXPENSES
• What expenses to prepare for:
– Payleap (www.bit.ly/payleap) to get discounted rates
• $15.95 for everything
– Skype for Main Line
• $9.99 per month (if prepaid for a year)
– Ring Central for Unlimited Toll Free (www.bit.ly/ringcentral4495)
• $44.95 per month (instead of $50 + 15 taxes)
– PayPal Express Checkout
• Free
– Live Chat
• $9.99 per month
– ecommerce Shopping Cart (www.shoppingcartelite.com)
• $99 and up per month

17. PROTECTING YOURSELF POST SALE
• You buy a business and find out that it was a scam, Now what?
– Use Escrow
– Ask Seller to give at least 3 days to evaluate the business before releasing
escrow (Escrow offers this option)
• You buy a business and the seller starts a new one the next day,
Now what?
– Before you ask the seller to do so, you need to consider if the seller poses
a competition risk for you. If they spent a year and got no where close
where you will be in a year the risk is very low. If you feel the seller spent
many years developing the website and using his knowledge and
discounts he can start one and in a year compete head to head with you
then you should consider it.
– Ask the seller to sign a non-compete agreement for a minimum of one
year which will restrict them from starting the same identical business. If
the seller refuses, it shouldn’t be a deal breaker. You can use this to
negotiate a lower selling price to minimize your risk.

18. GET HELP EVALUATING A BUSINESS
• My name is Igor Soshkin, I am the founder of Shopping Cart
Elite, an ecommerce platform. You can read more about my
expertise at www.igorsoshkin.com
• I have 12 years of experience in ecommerce and operating
online businesses. I have bought and sold multiple
ecommerce companies for my self and my clients.
• I CAN HELP YOU EVULATE YOUR NEW PURCHASE BY GIVING
YOU THE BUSINESSES:
– OPPORTUNITY
– RISKS
– FAIR MARKET VALUE

19. GET HELP EVALUATING A BUSINESS
• USING MY KNOWLEDGE I CAN ALSO NEGIOTATE THE DEAL
ON YOUR BEHALF TO GET YOU THE BOTTOM LOW PRICE
• HOW CAN YOU HIRE ME TO EVALUATE A BUSINESS?
– I WILL EVALUATE UP TO FIVE BUSINESSES, FREE OF CHARGE IF YOU
AGREE TO MIGRATE THE NEW BUSINESS ON SHOPPING CART ELITE,
AFTER YOU PURCHASE IT. WE WILL HELP YOU WITH MIGRATION
– TO LEARN MORE ABOUT SHOPPING CART ELITE GO TO
www.bit.ly/shoppingcartelite

20. GET HELP EVALUATING A BUSINESS
– IF YOUR NEW ONLINE BUSINESS WOULD NOT WORK WITH SHOPPING
CART ELITE, I CHARGE $550 ONE TIME TO EVALUATE THE BUSINESS YOU
WANT TO PURCHASE AND GIVE YOU A FULL REPORT WITH MY OPINION
AS WELL AS FAIR MARKET VALUE.
– IF YOU WILL WANT ME TO NEGIOTATE THE DEAL FOR YOU, I CHARGE 10%
FROM WHATEVER AMOUNT I SAVED YOU DURING THE NEGOTATION.
• WANT TO GET INTO A NEW BUSINESS?
– IF YOU ARE IN THE MARKET TO FIND A NEW BUSINESS, I CAN LOOK AT MY
CLIENT PORTOFOLIO WHO WOULD BE WILLING TO SELL THEIR BUSINESS
BELOW FAIR MARKET VALUE
• FILL OUT THE FORM BELOW AND GET MY BUSINESS EVALUATION
EXPERTISE TODAY
–www.bit.ly/igorhelpme