SMM Blogs for sale by Auction on Flippa.com

As readers of this blog know, this blog and StayGoLinks are now being sold by online auction at Flippa.com.  Online auctions require knowledge and skill to secure the best prices for properties sold on them and the research we have done for Flippa.com may be of interest to others.

If you wish to see these live auctions at flippa.com, click on either of the two panels to the right to go directly to the relevant auction page. Alternatively contact Barry Welford if you have any questions.

The Total Selling Process

Low value websites can be sold entirely within the Flippa.com auction system.   However for higher value websites it is important to use other methods of promotion to publicize the sale.  Luckily with a blog, the high search engine visibility of blog posts provides a ready method of doing this, particularly with the RSS feed for new posts.  The total process thus involves the following steps:

1. promote upcoming sale on Flippa.com via blog posts and social media
2. register with Flippa.com
3. create Flippa listing (with full information: this is critical)
4. promote Flippa listing by Premium Upgrades, social media and by further blog posts
5. review bids as they come in
6. close auction when appropriate with the following options:
   • the reserve price is met – sell to the highest accepted bidder
   • the reserve is not met
     • negotiate with the highest bidder, or
     • retain the blog

Seller in the driving seat

Given that there are many potential buyers and only one property for sale, this puts the seller in the driving seat. This manifests itself through the following aspects:

• The seller chooses the duration of the auction, the Buy It Now (BIN) price and the reserve price.
• The seller can reduce the duration, the BIN or the reserve at any time.
• The seller is located in a certain time zone and this may put others in different time zones at a disadvantage.
• The seller can accept or reject bidders based on due diligence reviews without explanation.

Another factor that puts the seller in the driving seat is more information as illustrated by the image to the right.  This is what a seller sees at the top of the right sidebar whereas this is hidden from other visitors or buyers.  This shows how many people have seen the listing and how many of them have put the listing on their Watchlist.  These ‘watchers’ may not all be potential buyers and potential buyers may not add the listing to their Watchlist but it is a useful indication of interest.  Even though no bids may yet have been tendered, if some are watching the listing then closer to the end-point bids could be placed.

The seller may also receive private messages from others and again other potential buyers will be unaware of this interest.

The Buyer’s Dilemma

The seller’s advantages create equivalent disadvantages for the buyer.  The buyer has the following uncertainties:

• I am bidding against an unknown number of other interested parties.  I know only for the bids placed already, the price that has been tendered and little else about the bidder except for the number of bids they may have placed on other listings.
• Should I make the first bid?  This may signal to others that this is a website of interest.
• Will someone else snap up this property by tendering the BIN price or should I do this first?
• There may be a time zone difference between the seller and myself, which may create a disadvantage for me.

Seller’s Tactics to encourage bids

The auction only works if bids are tendered so the seller must ensure this happens.  If  the property has value and the starting price quoted is reasonable, this will usually not be a problem but may only occur as the end-point of the auction approaches.

The seller should continue to market the live auction both externally and through the Premium features offered by Flippa.com.  If there is favourable news about the website, then this can be publicized via the Comment feature on Flippa.com.

If the seller believes from the Watchlist information and from Private Messages that there is now sufficient interest, then the length of the auction should be reduced to a few days.  The BIN price can also be reduced slightly if necessary as the close-off approaches.

The fine-tuning on this can be affected by the time zone where the seller is located.  For example assuming the key market for the website is likely to be the Eastern seaboard of the US, then a West Coast seller might decide to announce changes to the length of the auction or the BIN at 09:00 pm PST.  This is then midnight in New York, 4:00 pm in Sydney Australia and 6:00 am in Paris.  When that New Yorker who was interested in the website checks in at 09:00 am, the website may have been snapped up in the preceding 9 hours.  Since this change might occur any day, the only sure way for the interested New Yorker to be sure of getting that West Coast website is to use the BIN price bid early.