Mikesscuba.com and Scubathings.com

[divepa]

Hello,

I am hesitantly making this post. I have a small dive shop in central PA (Mike's Scuba). Along with owning my scuba shop I am also involved in a couple other businesses. Mikesscuba.com and Scubathings.com are domains that I have been running years. I am totally happy with our scuba shop now, but with all the commitments that we have, we do not have time to run and maintain the websites anymore. I am very keen on technology and have spent the past 5 years promoting mikesscuba.com. Right now if you do a search in google.com for "scuba accessories", "scuba equipment", "oceanic scuba gear", "zeagle scuba gear" and a bunch of other item specific stuff, mikesscuba.com comes for most keywords in the top 10. I have spent the last 5 years working with keyword ratios, content, and a bunch of other search engine optimization things. Since I put the site up 3 years ago, our site grossed over $41,000 on just online sales. That doesn't count phone orders that we get every week. About 98 percent of what we sell are Trident accessories. We do not warehouse these items. When an order comes in we order it from Trident, have it shipped to us, then we send it out (Trident does not like to dropship). Customers are usually about 2 weeks to get their products. We are currently (to my knowledge) the only website that has the entire trident catalog online. Both mikesscuba.com and scubathings.com have the exact same products. I am not selling my scuba business, but I will be doing away with the online sales. Both websites could have email addresses and contact information changes easily. I haven't gotten any details figure out AT ALL yet, but just wanted to make this post to get some thoughts. I had thought about putting these domains up on ebay but wanted to make a post here first. Just FYI, mikesscuba.com and scubathings.com are still fully operational and still taking online and phone orders every day. The site has not been shut down or anything. I have thought long and hard about making this post but I think the time has come in my life to focus on my dive shop and my other companies. I dont have time to sit in front of my laptop everyday like I have been. If I were to sell the site, whoever buys it will probably need a trident dealership so that they can continue to sell the same products. I guess the reason I am making this post is just to get some response and thoughts.. anybody have any clue what these might be worth or willing to pay? Anyone have any ideas where these sites can be listed? Anyone know of anybody that would have any interest? One complication would be that of course the name of the one site is "mikesscuba.com". The buyer would be silly to change the name of the domain because the domain itself is what is bringing all the traffic (search engine traffic). This post is kind of hard for me because I have had these websites (especially mikesscuba.com) for years and its like getting rid of something that is part of me. thoughts? thanks everyone.

Mike
www.mikesscuba.com
www.scubathings.com

 

[mike_s]

I think you should donate the domain mikessuba.com to me. (see my user name)

 

[divepa]

Any ideas?

 

[El Orans]

I suggest posting here: Services.

 

[lungs71]

HI Mike – I must commend you on your foresight and consideration to your customers if you do not have time to support the site. I work for an e-commerce company that has grown to over $600M/year in five years, so I understand the struggles you face at times. I also know how valuable search matrix is to an e-business. My company spends allot of money on services that will push our sites to the top of the search pages, which as you know is hit or miss sometimes…. Your write up is nice, almost to the point I might be interested in picking it up. Any way, if it was my company I would not sale mikesscuba.com that has a direct relationship to your normal “brick and mortar” store. If someone does not operate the on-line site I’m sure you will be getting the complaint calls and your main business could be affected. If it was me, I would put up an information page about your store and direct any sales to an on-line company you trust. I would however sale the scubathings.com at a percentage of your yearly sales on eBay or something and push the fact that you move allot of Trident product. May be you could contact Trident to see if they would help with throwing in some incentives since you carry so much of their product.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[divepa]

Thanks for the reply. The problem with just directing sales from mikesscuba.com to another site is that it would take my site which makes alot of sales and might be worth something and turning it into something that is not worth a thing (don't know if that made sense). The only thing that would be the same is the company name. All contact info would be to the new owners, email addresses, etc. What would you guess a site like mikesscuba.com would be worth? Yes, I know that is a very tough question to answer and there are appraisel companies out there.. but anyone have a round number? In my head I was thinking $15,000 for mikesscuba? Am I way out of the ballpark?

 

[genxweb]

Being I live in PA and my name is Mike I would love that domain and the ability to run a online dive shop though I couldn to afford that nor do I have time to do it. Though I would suggest checking out webhostingtalk.com and posting in the related offers category list all detail ie income and bills and how much you want for itin detail liek you did here. there are people there buying sites all the time. I just sold a site on there last week for about 1200 (no where near your 15,000) but you may get lucky.

 

[divepa]

Don't you think that $1200 for a site with the google ranking I have and an established site that does over 1500 a month in gross sales is a little low?

 

[Debraw]

I think Genxweb was just trying to give you a website where you might start looking at seeing what your site could be valued at. Here is an excerpt from your post:

"I guess the reason I am making this post is just to get some response and thoughts.. anybody have any clue what these might be worth or willing to pay? Anyone have any ideas where these sites can be listed? Anyone know of anybody that would have any interest?"

He gave you exactly what you are looking for, and you trashed it right away without even looking at it. So, if you are asking for opinions, let people give them to you. I have lots of stuff I value highly because of all the work, and ingenuity I put into it. It doesn't mean other people are willing to value it as highly as I do. I hope you get what you want out of it. I know all to well what it is like to be a small business owner in the scuba world.

 

[divepa]

thanks for your responses. I wasnt "shooting down" the post. Sorry if that came off wrong. I do appreciate the responses.

Mike