What is the Buying Process Like at Empire Flippers?
If you’re looking to buy the right profitable asset for you, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve helped people buy and sell hundreds of millions of dollars worth of online businesses and we want you to have a safe and secure buying experience.
Quick Navigation:
1. How to Unlock a Listing
2. Listings Below $300K
3. Listings Above $300K
4. How to Make an Offer (the Circulation Period)
5. How to Buy a Business Instantly
6. Migrations
How to Unlock a Listing
You’ll need to complete two steps before you can unlock a listing: verifying your ID and providing Proof of Funds.
We require that all buyers demonstrate proof of funds so we can best match you with listings within your criteria. You can connect your bank account or upload financial documents to meet these requirements.
However, you won’t be able to see detailed information if you just verify your ID and proof of funds. To see more intimate details of the business, you’ll need to unlock the listing. You’ll then be able to see proof of earnings, traffic, and other intimate details of the business.
Read here for the full unlock process
Listings Below $300K
For listings below $300,000, you can take your interest further by talking directly to the seller via our platform by clicking the “Ask the Seller a Question” icon.
With listings in this price range, there tend to be fewer moving parts. We’ve found that deals are done quicker by allowing buyers to take a more direct approach.
To help out, we’ll monitor the thread to clear up any questions or clarify any confusion that crops up. It’s important to keep correspondence in this thread; any offer made by a buyer outside of the platform is considered an informal offer. We’ll only take an offer seriously if it’s done within the platform.
Listings Above $300K
If a listing is over $300,000, it’s understandable that you might want to find out more about the business.
When you unlock a business in this price range, it will start an email thread with a Business Advisor. You can reach out to them with any questions you may have about the listing.
You can schedule a call directly with the seller on the listing page. A Business Advisor will hop on the call also to introduce you to the seller and help negotiate a deal for both parties.
After you’ve weighed up your options and you’re ready to go all in, it’s time to make your offer.
How to Make an Offer
After you have verified your ID, provided proof of funds, and completed your due diligence, you can submit an offer for a listing via the “Submit Offer” button located on the unlocked listing page.
Upon receiving an offer, a seller will have two options: to accept and finalize or to accept but circulate.
If the Seller Accepts and Finalizes the Offer
If a seller selects the option to accept and finalize your offer, you will be notified and will receive the next instructions for how to begin the payment process.
If the Seller Accepts but Circulates the Offer
Alternatively, if you submit an offer for less than the full list price, the seller has the option to accept but circulate. In this scenario, the offer will then enter our 24-hour circulation period.
This means that each buyer who had the listing unlocked at the time the offer is accepted will be notified and they will have 24 hours to send the seller a counter offer that is at least 10% higher, up to the full list price.
If a new counter offer is received and accepted, the circulation period will reset and run for another 24 hours. This will continue each time a new offer is accepted, up until a full list price offer is accepted. Full list price offers are typically not circulated unless they include an earnout.
Once the circulation period is complete, we will notify the buyer who’s won the listing. The next step to secure the purchase will then be to send us the funds.
Until we receive at least the 10% or $9,900 downpayment, whichever is higher, other buyers can still choose to try and buy the listing at the full list price. If a buyer decides to do this a wire race will then occur. You can learn more about this process here.
That said, once we receive the minimum downpayment, we will mark the listing as “Pending Sold”. This prevents any other buyer from buying the business and secures the purchase while the remaining balance is sent.
We typically expect to receive the full upfront payment within 7 business days, so please let us know if you anticipate any delays.
After we receive the full upfront payment, we will mark the listing as “Sold” and begin the Migration process.
To get ahead of the game, you can initiate the transfer after the offer has been accepted, or ahead of time via credit on file, and we can then transfer the funds toward the purchase once circulation ends.
Whichever option you choose, you can get the transfer process started via the Empire Flippers Wallet by selecting “Add Funds” then changing the purpose to “Purchase” and entering the remaining details.
Once done, you can click “Submit”. You will then be given a wire memo and our banking details. You will then utilize this information to transfer us the sales price funds from the financial institution of your choice.
The following are the typical payment methods utilized by buyers:
– Wire Transfers
– ACH (only available to banks in the USA)
– QuickPay
– www.wise.com
– Crypto-Currency (We can only accept BTC, ETH, USDT, and USDC)
On the other hand, you can click “Buy Now” to instantly buy the business at the listing price and avoid the circulation period altogether.
But, please be aware that the ‘Buy Now’ button won’t be available for a listing that is in circulation.
How to Buy a Business Instantly
The option to buy a business right away is available for listings that are not in circulation by clicking the “Buy Now” button next to the “Unlock Listing” icon, where you’ll be directed to a page with our wire instructions.
You can either place a 10% or $9,900 non-refundable down payment, whichever is higher, to hold the listing until you wire the remaining amount, or pay the entire listing fee immediately.
Until we receive at least the 10% or $9,900 downpayment, the listing will still be set as For Sale on our Marketplace. This means other buyers can still choose to use the Buy Now option or Submit an Offer.
If another buyer chooses to purchase the listing at the full list price either at the same time as you or after your below list offer was accepted, you will then enter a Wire Race.
In such a race, the winning buyer will be selected based on whose funds hit our account first. You can learn more about this here.
Either way, please wire funds as soon as possible to secure the listing. Once we receive the full upfront funds we’ll then mark the listing as Sold and start the migration process.
Migrations: The Final Stretch to Acquiring Your New Business
During this time, Empire Flippers holds the funds like an escrow account. This is done so we can ensure that the business successfully transfers over.
After the business is under your ownership, you’ll have two weeks to verify that the business runs as advertised and that nothing was grossly misrepresented, such as traffic or revenue numbers.
Once you confirm that everything is in order as expected, we’ll release the funds to the seller.
It sounds easy to migrate an online business, but there are a fair few steps involved and if you get any of them wrong, it can delay the transfer process by weeks or even months.
We’re the only broker who helps to migrate a business from a seller to a buyer at no extra cost.
We’re the only broker who helps migrate a business from a seller to a buyer; this extra added service allows buyers to focus on preparing to run their new asset.
Read here for the full breakdown of the migration process
And that’s our buying process in a nutshell! Schedule a call with our team of business analysts to kickstart your buying journey so you can start building long-term wealth.