Sell a business · E-commerce
Sell your e-commerce business, on your terms.
E-commerce businesses sell on the durability of their traffic and margins. A store with diversified acquisition channels, a real brand customers search for by name, and healthy contribution margins after ad spend is a fundamentally different asset from one reselling commodity products on a single marketplace account - even at identical profit.
Buyers in this category are unusually analytical. Expect channel-level P&Ls, cohort questions, and a hard look at platform dependence: what happens to this business if the ad account, the marketplace ranking, or the supplier relationship changes? Sellers who have already de-risked those single points of failure command the premium end of the band.
What buyers pay for
What moves your e-commerce business toward the top of the band.
Traffic and channel diversification
Revenue split across organic, paid, email, and marketplace channels - with no single channel above roughly half - reads as durable. One-channel businesses get priced for the fragility.
Repeat purchase behavior
Returning-customer revenue share and cohort retention are the e-commerce equivalent of recurring contracts. Subscription components, where genuine, price at the top of the band.
Supply chain transferability
Supplier agreements, exclusivities, and realistic transition of relationships. A single-supplier product with no agreement is a risk a buyer will price, not ignore.
Prepare before you list
Diligence starts long before the buyer shows up.
Build a channel-level P&L
Revenue, ad spend, and contribution margin by channel for the trailing twelve months. This is the first artifact a sophisticated e-commerce buyer requests.
Document standard operating procedures
Fulfillment, customer service, listing management, ad operations - written SOPs are what make a one-owner store transferable, and they materially shorten diligence.
Verify account transferability
Marketplace accounts, payment processors, and ad accounts each have their own transfer rules. Confirm what can move to a buyer before you list, not during closing week.
Free valuation calculator
What is your e-commerce business actually worth?
Two minutes, no signup. We start from the typical e-commerce band of 2.5x to 3.4x owner profit, then adjust for your growth and track record. The math runs entirely in your browser - we never store what you type.
Estimate my business valueThe Slyced Exchange
Sell without telling the world.
When you are ready to ask the market, the Exchange is a private way to do it. Your listing is anonymous by default: built from ranges and categories, screened word by word for anything that could identify you, and reviewed by a person before it goes live.
Buyers verify their identity before they can request access, you approve every request, and a real NDA is signed before your name is revealed. Listing is a flat subscription - never a percentage of your sale.
The Exchange opens soon. Join the owners preparing to list.
Talk to us about sellingAnonymous by default
The public profile is built from ranges and categories. Your name and exact numbers have no field to live in.
Verified buyers only
Anyone can browse, but requesting access requires identity verification first. No anonymous tire-kickers.
NDA before any reveal
You see who a buyer is before they learn who you are, and a real NDA is signed before the reveal.
0% commission, ever
A flat software subscription. We never take a percentage of your sale - not at listing, not at closing.
Plain answers
Questions e-commerce owners ask.
- What is an e-commerce business worth?
- Typical small-business transactions put e-commerce stores at roughly 2.5x to 3.4x SDE, with channel diversification, repeat-purchase rates, and supply chain durability deciding where in the band a store lands. Treat the range as an educated starting point - growth trend and platform risk move individual deals well within and around it.
- Does marketplace dependence lower my valuation?
- Heavy dependence on a single marketplace or ad channel generally prices toward the lower end of the band, because the buyer inherits a concentration risk they cannot control. Diversifying even modestly before a sale tends to pay for itself.
- How is inventory handled in the sale price?
- Usually separately. The multiple is applied to earnings, and sellable inventory is added on top at cost (or a negotiated value) at closing. Keep inventory records current so this part of the negotiation is arithmetic, not argument.