The hot topic of conversation on most of the forums seems to be website flipping. It's quickly working it's way up the ladder to becoming one of the most popular business models among internet marketers. Site flipping is similar to flipping real estate in that someone takes a piece of property, in this case it's virtual property, they add value to it and they quickly sell it to someone else. At a profit, of course. And that's what it's all about - money.
If you've looked into site flipping at all, I'm sure you've heard of a place called Flippa. They are an online auction service, trying to pattern themselves after eBay, that specializes in online properties like blogs, websites, domain names, eBooks, you name it. If it's virtual property, you can sell it there.
They have an auction system similar to eBay's. You pay a listing fee, you can set a specific amount of time you want your listing to run and you can set minimum bids and reserve limits. They even have a feedback system where sellers and buyers can rate their experiences with each other. But that's pretty much where the similarity ends.
For one thing, Flippa has a barely minimum verification process in place. When you first register with them, their method of determining that you are who you say you are is to send a code number to your telephone. When you receive that number on your phone, you enter it into the little box and they say, Yep, that really is Santa Claus. Give that guy an account! The only other verification they do is to have you install a code number in the root of your website when you list it to prove that you own it. I'm not a programmer, OR a hacker, so I guess I'll accept THAT one at face value.
After that, buying and selling sites on this auction site pretty much just becomes a Free-For-All. Scumbags will tell you there site has had thousands of dollars in sales over the last 3 months and a simple search of the domain name shows you they just bought it yesterday. Unimaginative copy-cats throw up a PLR website and copy and paste a listing and tell you it's a UNIQUE, ONE OF A KIND, blog. Unscrupulous buyers will outbid everyone else for your site, then, either never pay for it or file a dispute with PayPal, AFTER THEY INSTALL IT, and you have to give their money back to protect your reputation.
Flippa's non-management of comments and feedback leave the sellers totally at the mercy of the buyers - with their neck's exposed! Comments are not monitored at all and ruthless scammers like to dive bomb listings in an attempt to keep the bids down so they can swoop in at the last minute and get those sites for themselves. Deleting negative and spammy comments, though, only makes the seller look like they have something to hide. And feedback? That's a joke. Sellers are motivated to leave feedback in the hopes that the buyers will actually PAY for the site and maybe leave them a kind word in return. What motivates the buyer to leave feedback? Nothing. You're lucky if they actually PAY you.
Have you ever actually bid on a site at Flippa? Have you noticed that the auction never seems to end? There never seems to be a winning bidder. If an interested bidder plops down an offer within the last hour of the auction, they automatically adds 4 hours to the length of the auction. In the meantime, buyers and sellers alike are left wondering what just happened? Is it over or not?
According to the stats that they list on site, they processed sales in excess of $110,000 within the last week. For a site that does that much business, you'd think they would have better control over the final transaction, the part where money and property exchange hands. But they are not concerned if either party in the transaction is ever satisfied. They got their money from you when you listed the site. In the end, it's up to the buyer and the seller to work out the details and transfer the funds and the property. Filing a dispute with Flippa if one of those parties does not comply often results in a vague answer, IF you get an answer at all.
In my opinion, there should be a better way of handling these on line virtual real estate transactions. Site flipping is becoming too popular for shoddy sites like this to continue taking our money and running. Ther are other auction sites available, but they're even worse than Flippa. But I've noticed lately that there are an awful lot of sites listed with not so many bids. A lot of sites aren't getting any bids at all. Are the buyers getting smarter? Or is it the sellers who are getting smarter? I think it's the QUALITY sellers, who have had enough of the shoddy business practices at Flippa, finding better ways to conduct their transactions, and they're taking their QUALITY buyers with them. I think Flippa better either step up or step out!
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