Do you like shopping? To a certain extent, I do. If you are like me, you would enjoy buying the best stuff at the lowest prices.
If you want to buy stuff at great prices, you should look at pawn shops, garage sales, yard sales, local markets, and such. One thing you can benefit from shopping from such places: Stuffs people don’t want might be treasures to you.
In webpreneurship, the same principle also applies. All you need to do is to shop around.
In my online entrepreneurial journey, I rarely buy websites at market value. Please bear in mind, when it comes to websites, “market value” can vary greatly. By market value, I mean that the asking price is acceptable and best-fit with the criteria I have for buying a website.
I am a bootstrapper and love to go frugal – I find ways to get the most for less, legitimately. In buying websites, I look for those that are on offer WAY BELOW the real value.
But you would think, “Yeah – but such deals are hard to find.” True, but it’s probably not as hard as you think.
Tips on buying a website the bootstrapper’s way
Here are some tips for you to discover great websites on offer at low prices:
1. Browse webmaster forums, not website buying and selling marketplace
If you look for quality and trust, you should go to the website marketplace, such as Flippa.com – the sites’ price tag is not that attractive, though. However, if you don’t mind dealing with scam risks but you can get great sites at low prices, you should go to webmaster forums, such as DigitalPoint Forums.
2. There will be people in need of money – help them out
When you are on webmaster forums, sooner or later you will discover that there are website owners who need money for one reason or another – some just need money to pay their rents; some just discovered great business opportunities and need all the funds they can get to secure them; some just lose interest in their sites…
For whatever reasons, there are definitely people who want to let their sites go for cheap to pursue their other endeavors. THIS is your chance to help them out by buying their lower-than-market-value sites. It’s a win-win situation, really…
3. Some just don’t know they own gems – grab ‘em before they find out
Some website owners just don’t know how valuable their web assets are; so they neglect them and list them for sale at low price tags just to get rid of them.
When you hang out long enough in forums, you’ll see that your intuition and eyes for great web business enhanced; you will see gold in other people’s junks – use your newly-found skills to secure great sites at dirt cheap.
4. Negotiation is a mind game – always try to negotiate
When a website owner lists their site with “asking price” or “O.B.O. – or best offer” there’s a chance that you will get great deals.
A website for sale I just being recommended on is at $1,000 O.B.O. – I don’t really like the website and don’t see the real value of it and told I’m not interested in the seller; the seller then dropped the asking price to $450 in a blink… I eventually pass the opportunity, but you get the point…
So there you go – good luck on being a street-smart webpreneur and secure those great deals.
