Flippa

Very unlikely you will find a successful ecom business for $2k IMO. Even most the scam listings on Flippa are looking for a $50k-100k payout - and there are so so many scam listings on Flippa from people who have just bought traffic. Not impossible, just highly unlikely you will find something good at around that price level. More on reddit.com

It’s a gamble most of the time. The seller would want to show lots of data and stats but they can be manipulated. It’s pretty easy to get junk traffic at a very low cost to a website so be vigilant More on reddit.com

I don't want to be dismissive of your industry expertise, but I think this highlights the thin value add of things like social followers, email lists, or SEO. Those things are only valuable insofar as they drive revenue; if they aren't driving revenue, there's no point in rolling them into a valuation estimate. Ads might have a higher up-front cost, but if they also drive higher net profit, then obviously the valuation will be bigger. Normal valuation for non-public companies is based on EBITDA, and most industries look at prior calendar year EBITDA. Maybe this is an atypical industry where you develop and flip the site in less than a calendar year, but that'd make it hard to apply conventional business metrics anyway. The marketplace for buying and selling businesses will establish valuations based on multiples of EBITDA. I don't know what it is for websites, but if you're pulling in $29,000 annually in profit and similar sales can be reasonably expected in future years, then selling for $19,000 seems low. More on reddit.com

Some Questions to ask before buying a website:

Has the product supplier discontinued supplying products the website is selling

Were the products being sold are somehow copyright protected (if so as new owner you get sued for much more $$$)

Did website receive google penalty

Are the Instagram subscribers real or bots

Did you confirm the traffic is what they say it is ?

Will the traffic drop 2 months after you buy it? (Are there a bunch of PBNs pointing to the site which will get flagged by google? )

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