Up for sale is our eBay and Amazon based retail business. We sell all sorts of brand new, high quality vehicle parts sourced from China, Türkiye, Poland, and the UK to sell online via these two platforms and also our own website.
The business was bought by the current owner approximately 5 years ago, he has since grown the business into what it is today. In total there are 5 individual businesses included in this sale. Each individual platform is its own company with 3 eBay accounts and 2 amazon accounts (plus the website, and exterior trade accounts). The current owner chose this setup because the original plans were to grow each individual business to a point where they could be sold off in their own right and still continue purchasing from the one original company. The companies aren't there yet, but a change in business direction has led to the current owner making the hard decision to sell the group of businesses as a whole to pursue other business interests.
The eBay accounts:
There are 3 eBay accounts all of varying ages.
One account (5 years trading) currently turns over approximately 450-500k per year.
The second account (1 year trading) will turnover approximately 200K per year
The third account (8 months trading) will turnover approximately 90K this year given the last 12 months sales figures.
The Amazon accounts:
One account (5 years trading) currently turns over approximately 260k per year.
The second account (8 months trading) will turnover approximately 35K per year.
It's worth pointing out that in the past year significant investment has been spent growing the new accounts which, now that they are done, is a one off cost, which has cost around £11,000. Once these accounts mature the daily transaction amount will be significantly higher than it is at present as can be seen from the figures of the new vs legacy accounts.
The business also sells to local trade customers and also takes sales via a website. These sales total approximately 10k per year but are more profitable as they dont have eBay or Amazon fees on them.
The business is run from a 500sq m warehouse (although could be run from half this space if utilising high racking) and has 3 x daily courier collections. There are two staff members in the warehouse on staggered shifts with one doing 30 hours per week and the other around 10. There is also a remote customer services staff member doing 14 hours per week. And then the business owner who splits his time between this business and his other business interests. The business is at the point now that with one full time member of staff it could run well whether that be owner occupier or staff run.
The business is set up well, with the past year being dedicated to setting up systems so that the business can run smoothly. Warehouse and order management is now run from a dedicated software platform, so customer order processing and also business ordering from suppliers can be done at the click of a button.
This business could continue to be run as it is, retaining the current staff, or it could be relocated anywhere in the UK to be owner run. 1 person could now run this business assuming an 8 hour working day (along with keeping the remote customer services role)
Also to note that some of the running costs of the business would/could be reduced or totally zeroed through synergies with a current online business. These amount to approximately £150,000 per year in opex costs that would give significant cashflow upside if the businesses are absorbed into an existing business.
With more time and more commitment this business can be built into something much much bigger with lots of supplier parts still not even looked at, other platforms can be considered and a new website would certainly boost sales as our current website only contains around 30% of our stocked items.
The owner would be happy to negotiate a sale price for the group of businesses for £420,000 representing a fabulous investment of 2.75x EBITDA, plus stock at cost on top of purchase price of £200k, at present (but fluctuating daily based on sales and order purchases). Low, medium, and high (2,2.75,3.5 x EBITDA) multipliers have been used to value the business which total (including 200k stock figure) £510,000, £620,000, and £730,000
Included in the sale are the 5 sales channels, 5 companies, website, stock, racking, office and IT equipment - fully set up so you can hit the ground running.
