Empire Flippers Vs Trend Hijacking for Buying E-commerce Businesses
What Is Empire Flippers?
Empire Flippers is one of the oldest marketplaces for buying and selling online businesses.
The platform lists various types of online businesses, including websites, e-commerce stores, SaaS, content sites, and more.
Sellers usually apply to list a business on the platform. Empire Flippers then reviews the business's financials, traffic, and performance before listing.
Once approved, buyers can browse deals.
Empire Flippers earns a fee when a transaction closes. The fee can be 15 to 20 % of the sale price (as indicated on the Empire Flippers fee page).
Empire Flippers provides vetting and basic verification. That is more than open marketplaces. But the buyer still must do their own full checks.
Read This Next: A Detailed Flippa Vs Empire Flippers Comparison
We Help You Buy / Build, Manage and Scale E-commerce Brands for an EXIT
E-commerce Simplified for Busy Individuals – We handle the buying, building, and scaling, so you can focus on what matters.
Growth-Focused Strategies – From sourcing to marketing, we drive growth and prepare you for a profitable exit.
Expertly Managed Exits – We build a high-value brand designed for a Lucrative exit.
What Is TrendHijacking?
TrendHijacking is not a marketplace like Empire Flippers. This single factor makes it stand out from typical marketplaces.
Trend Hijacking does not host public listings. Instead, it works for buyers only.
The goal is to help investors find and buy profitable e-commerce businesses below market value.
Trend Hijacking does deep due diligence on deals before sharing them with buyers.
The team helps negotiate a price that creates instant equity.
And after the purchase, TrendHijacking helps with scaling, operations, and exit planning.
Overall, Trend Hijacking acts like a partner for the buyers. It focuses on long-term results, not just closing deals.
Deal Quality and Vetting
Empire Flippers vets listings before they go live. It checks that revenue and profit figures are real. This reduces basic risk compared to the open marketplaces.
But even with their vetting, their listings can vary widely.
As a buyer, you still need to review inventory, supplier relationships, marketing costs, and customer data in detail.
This step is crucial to protect you from investing in bad deals.
Trend Hijacking, on the other hand, vets deals at a forensic level before a buyer ever sees them. This simply means that:
Financials are checked line by line
Risks are identified early
Weak deals are filtered out before showing buyers
This significantly reduces the time wasted going through bad deals.
Read This Next: Risks of Sloppy Due Diligence In Business Acquisition
Pricing and Valuation
The online businesses on Empire Flippers often sell at market or above-market multiples.
Talking of e-commerce stores, they usually sell at 2.5 to 4x annual profit.
This is so because listings are open to many buyers and sellers set a high price.
Trend Hijacking focuses on buying established e-commerce brands below market value. Typical multiples may be:
Below $200,000 deals: about 0.8x to 1.2x annual profit
Larger stable deals: about 1.2x to 1.5x annual profit
Buying below market value creates instant equity and reduces downside risk.
To get a clear picture of how Trend Hijacking achieves pricing below the market value, check out their case studies here.
These real-life acquisition studies clearly show the significant amounts of cash they have saved their investment partners in some of the top deals they’ve closed.
Buyer Support After Purchase
Empire Flippers stops supporting the buyer after the deal closes. This means as a buyer, you must run the store, hire staff, and fix issues on your own.
Needless to say, this can be challenging if you don’t have prior experience running an online store or online business in general.
TrendHijacking offers you post-purchase support, where they continue to work the acquisition journey with you.
Depending on the e-commerce investment program you choose, you can enjoy post-acquisition support in the form of:
Team setup and onboarding
Operations and logistics help
Marketing and growth planning
Exit planning from day one
Post-acquisition support is a crucial consideration if you want help in scaling your newly acquired e-commerce business after closing.
Read This Next: What To Do After Acquiring An E-commerce Business
We Help You Buy / Build, Manage and Scale E-commerce Brands for an EXIT
E-commerce Simplified for Busy Individuals – We handle the buying, building, and scaling, so you can focus on what matters.
Growth-Focused Strategies – From sourcing to marketing, we drive growth and prepare you for a profitable exit.
Expertly Managed Exits – We build a high-value brand designed for a Lucrative exit.
Risk and Downside Protection
FACT: Buying any existing business is always a risky affair.
And Empire Flippers tends to understand this pretty well. They put in efforts to vet their listings. This helps reduce the risk to some extent.
Nevertheless, the buyer still carries most risk after closing.
When you work with Trend Hijacking to acquire an existing e-commerce brand, you’ll enjoy reduced risk in multiple ways, as listed below:
1. You get deals that are priced below market value.
2. Thanks to their deep due diligence, you can spot problems before purchase.
3. Scaling and exit plans for the business are built in from the start.
As you can easily guess, businesses with a clear growth and exit plan are likely to sell faster and for more than those without one.
This is based on the simple fact that such businesses demonstrate strong and transferable value.
They achieve this through well-organized financials, strategic foresight, and excellent management—all this appeals to buyers and minimize risk.
Read This Next: Red Flags In E-commerce Business Acquisition
Who Is Empire Flippers Good For?
You should choose Empire Flippers for buying existing e-commerce brands if:
You want to browse a wide range of deals
You want some vetting before buying
You are comfortable doing your own post-purchase work
You enjoy deal hunting
However, Empire Flippers might not be an ideal option if you want:
A partner that represents only your interests
Help with scaling the online store after purchase
Guarantees or structured exit plans
Who Is TrendHijacking Good For?
TrendHijacking is the best choice for investors interested in acquiring established online stores and want the following:
Buy-side advocacy and support
Deals priced below market value
A partner for scaling and exiting
Less personal time spent on due diligence
Tren Hijacking isn’t just another tool/platform to browse deals. Rather, it works with investors/buyers who desire structure and outcomes.
Read This Next: Flippa Vs Trend Hijacking for Acquiring Existing E-commerce Brands
Final Word
Both Empire Flippers and TrendHijacking can help you find e-commerce businesses. But they serve different goals.
Empire Flippers is a brokered marketplace. Buyers can see vetted listings and choose what they want. After purchase, buyers run the business on their own.
TrendHijacking is a buyer-first advisory. It finds deals not listed publicly, vets them deeply, negotiates below market value, and supports scaling and exits.
If you want a marketplace to browse deals, Empire Flippers works for you.
If you want a partner to help you buy, grow, and exit profitable e-commerce stores, Trend Hijacking is a more strategic choice.
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