FOR SALE: Niche eCommerce Store Selling Its Own Brand of Unique Nerd/Geek Accessories

Up for sale is a 7.5 year old niche eCommerce business that sells its own brand of 100% unique nerd/geek accessories. These are super cool "one-of-a-kind" products that the seller has personally designed and had manufactured. They cannot be found in other stores (online or brick and mortar). Customers absolutely love the products, as evidenced by a) the website's return customer rate and b) its incredibly low 0.5% refund percentage.

Over the past 12 months, the business generated about $215,000 in revenue and over $72,000 in bottom-line net profit. It boasts an amazing 66.9% gross profit margin (i.e. after cost of goods sold and shipping/fulfillment costs) and an equally impressive 34.2% net profit margin (i.e. after all expenses). You can see the P&L and other financial information here.

Just under 3/4 of the business' revenue (73.8%) came from website sales with the remaining ~1/4 of revenue (26.2%) generated from direct sales at a handful of Comic Con events (all in the western United States). The conventions are extremely profitable, but the owner has a family with several young children so leaving home is hard (thus limiting him to only attending a few conventions per year). As discussed in the Growth Opportunities section below, the new owner could significantly increase revenue/profits by attending many more Comic Con events across the nation each year (there are typically at least 2-3 Comic Cons going on virtually every weekend throughout the entire year).

The owner is selling the business because he also owns a promising up-and-coming SaaS business that he wants to devote all of his time and attention to.

Key Information

• Niche: Nerd/geek accessories (please sign the NDA to see the domain name and product lines)
• Store Model: Self-fulfilled "stock and ship"
• P&L Period: Trailing Twelve Months (TTM) May 2022 - April 2023
• Business Age: ~7.5 years (launched in Dec 2015)
• Avg. Monthly Gross Revenue: $17,894
• Avg. Monthly Net Profit: $6,023
• Gross Profit Margin: 66.9% of revenue
• Net Profit Margin: 34.2% of revenue
• Included: $115k of inventory + $7.5k of assets
• Avg. Order Value (AOV): $33.73
• 2022 Return Customer Rate: 12.2%
• Owner Time Requirement: 7-8 hours per week (more the weeks of a Comic Con event)

Asking Price: $410,000

The seller's $410,000 asking price was calculated as follows...

Store Coach feels an annual earnings multiplier of 4.0 is appropriate for the following reasons:

• The business sells 100% unique products that cannot be found elsewhere online or in brick-and-mortar stores
  
  
• It is a well-established 7.5-year-old business that has proven to have longevity and staying power
  
  
• Both the gross profit margin (66.4%) and net profit margin (32.6%) are spectacular
  
  
• There are several "low-hanging fruit" growth opportunities that could instantly make the business much more profitable
  
  
• The business is very easy to run (it has no employees and only requires 7-8 owner hours per week)

Here is the P&L Statement for a) the calendar year 2022 (on the left), b) January - April 2023 (in the middle), and c) the Trailing Twelve Months (TTM - on the right). The TTM figures (on the right) were calculated using the average monthly figures from 2022 for 8 months of the TTM period together with the average monthly figures from Jan-Apr 2023 for the other 4 months of the TTM period. Click on the image to see a larger version of the P&L in a new tab.

Following is a screenshot of the Shopify 'Finances Summary' report for the year 2022 (note: since direct sales at conventions are run through the Shopify POS system, this Shopify report includes both website sales and convention sales)...

Here is the same Shopify report for January - April 2023...

Following is the Analytics overview report from Shopify, which shows various key metrics (i.e. sales, sessions, returning customer rate, conversion rate, average order value, total orders, sessions by location, etc.) for the calendar year 2022. (Click on the image to see a full-size version of it in a new tab.)

The current owner will of course give the eventual buyer the opportunity to conduct extensive due diligence, including live "screen-share" web meeting(s) where you’ll be able to view reports and transactions in the Shopify admin panel, payment accounts, inventory purchases, etc. to verify and confirm all of the figures shown in the P&L above.

As noted above, the business sells several accessory-type products that appeal to "nerds/geeks" who go to conventions like Comic Con (no offense intended... the owner is one of these nerds/geeks himself).  :-)

The products were all conceived and designed by the owner himself, and he's had them manufactured exclusively for his business. These products are 100% unique and cannot be found elsewhere online or in brick-and-mortar stores. The specific product lines (along with the domain name of the website) will be disclosed once you have signed the NDA below.

The eCommerce store has right around 170 products, sourced from 2 suppliers (one in the USA and one in China). The seller has been working with these suppliers for several years, is very pleased with the quality of their products, and has a great deal of trust in them. The relationships he's built with them will of course transfer to the new owner.

The website generates traffic through a combination of:

• Free direct traffic from people who know the domain name of the site and come directly to it, most likely because: a) they're a previous customer, b) they've visited the website in the past, or c) they saw the business' booth at a Comic Con event
  
  
• Click-through referral traffic from one of the ~44,800 email subscribers who receive periodic emails from the store owner announcing sales/specials, new products, new bundles, etc.
  
  
• Ad-driven traffic from the store's Facebook and Instagram ads (an average of just $1,925/mo, representing 10.9% of TTM revenue)
  
  
• Free search traffic from Google and other search engines (driven by the store's impressive keyword rankings - see below)
  
  
• Free referral traffic from other websites and blogs on the web (other website owners tend to really like the products and oftentimes link to them on their own without any invitation from the site owner)
  
  
• Free social traffic from the store owner's posts on Facebook (47k followers), Instagram (11k followers), Twitter (2.6k followers), etc.

Following is the 'Sessions by traffic source' report for 2022 from Shopify. Unfortunately, Shopify's traffic acquisition tracking system isn't nearly as robust as Google Analytics (which the owner never installed). But the report does provide some insight. (The 'Direct' category likely includes true direct traffic, email-driven traffic and referral traffic from other sites on the web. The 'Social' category likely includes traffic from both paid Facebook/Instagram ads as well as free social traffic from social media posts.)

This 'Sessions by social source' report breaks down the 'Social' traffic (from the report above) by social media site...

This next image is a screenshot of the summary report from the popular SEO tool Ahrefs.com. It shows the website's Domain Rating (DR), URL Rating (UR), backlink data, etc. The top line chart shows how the site's organic traffic (free) has grown over the past 2 years, and the bottom line chart shows how the site's number of page 1 (top 10) search rankings have increased.

As of May 2023, Ahrefs.com reports that the site has the following keyword rankings in Google.com (USA)...

In total, the site has 194 "top 10" keyword rankings that get a combined 22,240 searches per month on Google.com (USA) along with a lot of "up and coming" keyword rankings for which the site currently ranks on page 2 or 3 of Google.

Following are the site's top growth opportunities:

• Go to waaaaay more Comic Cons - As mentioned above, the seller has a large family with several young children, which makes it hard on his wife and children (not to mention him) when he leaves home to attend Comic Con events. Consequently, he typically only goes to 5-8 conventions per year (all in the western USA). These conventions have proven to be very worthwhile, both in terms of a) generating a lot of direct sales (the months with higher sales in the Shopify reports above correspond closely to the Comic Con months) as well as b) gaining additional customers and email subscribers, many of whom will go on to place multiple orders over the coming years. There are literally dozens and dozens of Comic Cons across the USA every year... more than you could possibly go to! The sky's the limit on how many Comic Cons you (or an employee or contractor of yours) could attend to really blow the roof off this business. (Note: The sale includes a very nice booth display for the Comic Con events, which the owner estimates he spent over $10,000 to create.)
  
  
• Continue to launch new product lines with the same "themes" - The store currently sells only 10 distinct types of products. There are literally dozens and dozens (probably hundreds) of other types of products you could sell with the same "themes" as the current product offerings. In fact, the owner is currently running a Kickstarter campaign (which is already at over 300% of its goal with over 2 weeks still to go) for a brand new product line he's in the process of adding. If you wanted, you could go absolutely "hog wild" adding a new type of product every month or two. The "die-hard" nerds who purchase from this store are the type of people who will buy most anything you put out. (Note: This business actually started with just a single product type under a different domain name. But the owner realized he could do well with other types of "themed" products as well, which he's done, switching to a more inclusive domain name along the way.)
  
  
• Do Kickstarter campaigns to launch new products - The type of nerd/geek accessories this store sells are absolutely perfect for Kickstarter. The campaigns always get funded and are wildly popular on Kickstarter. While the owner didn't do any Kickstarters in 2022, he's done many highly successful Kickstarters for this business in the past. His top 3 kickstarters generated a) $103.4k in revenue (essentially "pre-sales"), b) $100.2k in revenue, and c) $51.5k in revenue. He has a really nice Kickstarter template he's created and perfected, which is also included in the sale. And if you're interested, you can even hire him to run your kickstarters for a very reasonable fee.
  
  
• Start selling on Etsy, Amazon, Walmart, eBay and Other Marketplaces - Fearing the possibility of copycats, the store owner made the decision at the outset of starting the business to only sell on his own website... but he's questioned that decision many, many times over the years. Based on how other small accessory items like these sell on Etsy, Amazon and other marketplaces, you could likely double or triple sales (or more!) quite quickly by tapping into these enormous shopping marketplaces.

The sale includes all of the following...

• The domain name and website, including all textual and graphical content on the site (which includes a lot of ultra-professional photography, both with white backgrounds and lifestyle photos)
  
  
• Approximately $115,000 (at cost value) of inventory and shipping supplies (note: inclusion of storage shelves, racks and bins is negotiable)
  
  
• Both supplier accounts (one in the USA and one in China)
  
  
• All customer lists and email lists associated with the business (around 44,800 people/emails)
  
  
• Booth display for Comic Con events (which cost $10k+ to make - estimated FMV of $7,500)
  
  
• Kickstarter campaign template
  
  
• All social media accounts, including Facebook (47k followers), Instagram (11k followers), Twitter (2.6k followers), YouTube and TikTok
  
  
• 30 days of support to train you/your team on how to run the business, place orders with suppliers, process customer orders, manage the website, and pursue growth opportunities
  
  
• Note: The seller will of course sign a non-compete as part of the Asset Purchase Agreement.

You can make an offer for this online business here. We will immediately present your offer to the seller. If he accepts your offer, we'll notify you immediately and update this page to let other interested parties know that an offer has been accepted.

Once your offer is accepted, a 10-day due diligence period will begin (during which time other interested parties may place a "back-up offer" in case the sale falls through for whatever reason). During this 10-day due diligence period, we'll work closely with you and the seller to help you complete due diligence. Among other things, this will include doing a live screen-share web meeting so you can review financial information, the store admin panel, payment accounts, Google Analytics, etc. We'll also send you the Asset Purchase Agreement (APA) for you to review.

Once the APA is signed and the sale is completed, we will update this page to let other interested parties know that the sale has been finalized and remove this listing from the Store Coach Website Marketplace.

SALE PENDING - NOT CURRENTLY ACCEPTING NEW NDAs