Table Of Contents
Why Buy An Established E-commerce Business?
You’re probably asking yourself:
"Why should I even buy an e-commerce business? I could put $100 K into real estate, stocks, or index funds and see steady growth. So, what makes e-commerce better?"
Here’s the answer:
You get TOTAL CONTROL and instant feedback.
When you own an e-commerce store:
You choose what products to sell, how to price them, and where to show your ads.
You can launch a new product one day and see the sales change the next.
You can tweak your website design or tweak your ad targeting and watch clicks go up in real time.
With most other investments, that kind of speed and hands-on control simply does not exist.
In real estate, you wait months for a tenant or a sale.
In stocks and index funds, you follow market trends you can’t change.
With e-commerce, you call the shots, move fast, and capture gains right away.
EVEN BETTER…
Buying a ready-made e-commerce store comes with more exclusive benefits like:
1. Helps you skip the trial-and-error phase
When you start a new site, you face months of zero sales, advertising costs, and site fixes.
An established business already has traffic, customers, and revenue.
You will pay for that foundation, but you also cut out the hardest part. You get cash flow from day one.
2. You avoid steep learning curves
As a new e-commerce store builder, you must learn marketing, SEO, supply chains, and customer service.
And this takes time and money.
With an existing business, many of those processes are already in place.
This means you can focus on improving what already works instead of building from zero.
3. Buying can cost less than building
If you paid $100 per customer acquisition in ads, landing 1,000 customers would cost $100,000.
Now, compare that to acquiring an established business (which often sells at modest multiples of earnings).
For example, small businesses sell at about 2.5x the seller’s discretionary earnings on average.
Such a multiple means you can buy a business generating $40,000 in annual profit for around $100,000.
Then you can reinvest to grow that profit and scale to $400,000 or more in yearly earnings.
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.
Where To Find Quality Deals
Now that you have made up your mind to invest in a ready-made e-commerce business, your next question will be where to find such a business.
Finding the right e-commerce business for $100 K or less takes legwork.
You need to know the major marketplaces and niche brokers who will hold your hand through the acquisition process.
Top Marketplaces To Consider:
One of the best, most straightforward areas to find internet-based businesses listed for sale is online marketplaces like Flippa, Empire Flippers, BizBuySell, and more.
Flippa lists Shopify stores, Amazon FBA brands, and premade content sites. Prices for these businesses range from a few thousand dollars up to millions. You can filter by price, revenue, and niche.
Empire Flippers focuses on higher-quality listings. It vets each seller and only lists stores making at least $2,000 in monthly profit. Their fees are higher, but you get more security.
You can also check out our E-commerce Businesses for Sale section. Here, you’ll find our carefully vetted e-commerce businesses and Shopify Stores for sale across varying niches and with varying price tags to suit your needs.
Work With Niche Brokers
Beyond big marketplaces, you can also choose to work with specialized e-commerce brokers who focus on certain niches.
For example, some brokers handle only Amazon FBA businesses or only private-label brands.
Depending on the type of business you’re looking to acquire, you should be able to decide the right broker to work with.
Buy Directly From Business Owners
Alternatively, you can contact the online store owners directly. Yes, direct outreach gives you the benefit of acquiring deals that aren’t available on marketplaces.
Just a polite cold email to a site owner offering a fair price can work. Many owners run stores part-time and would sell if the offer makes sense.
Related: E-commerce Business For Sale by Owner: A 2025 Buyer’s Guide
Know The Value Of The Business
Once you identify a business you may want to acquire, the next step is to evaluate its worth. This will help you place an accurate bid.
So, how do you value an online-based business? There are two main options to consider:
#1. Seller’s Discretionary Earnings (SDE) Multiples
Seller’s discretionary earnings is one of the most common methods of valuing an e-commerce business.
It accounts for the business’s profit before the owner’s salary, interest, taxes, and one-off expenses.
For small e-commerce stores, buyers usually pay 2 to 3 times the SDE.
If a store shows $50,000 in SDE, its price would be $100,000 to $150,000.
#2. Revenue Multiples
You can also use revenue multiples, where the asking price is a multiple of the store's annual earnings.
Small businesses often sell for 0.5 to 1 times annual revenue. This means a store making $200,000 in sales might sell for $100,000 to $200,000.
Revenue multiples ignore profit, so they work best when profit margins are similar across deals.
Factors Affecting Multiples:
It’s worth noting that multiples can vary depending on factors such as niche. Health and beauty stores tend to sell at higher multiples than electronics shops.
Rapidly growing stores tend to command higher multiples than flat or declining ones.
Seasonal businesses, like gift shops, may sell at a discount if they make most of their sales in a short window.
Be sure to weigh these factors when comparing listings to help you make more informed decisions.
Related: How Much Do E-commerce Businesses Sell For? (2025 Guide)
Conduct Thorough Due Diligence
Due diligence is a crucial part of acquiring an already established internet business. It helps protect you from bad deals.
For a comprehensive due diligence, you must check financials, traffic, SEO, operations, and suppliers.
Financial Verification: Ask for bank statements, PayPal records, and accounting exports. Verify that reported earnings match actual deposits. Look for discrepancies like one-off sales or undisclosed expenses.
Traffic and SEO Audit: Use tools like Google Analytics, Ahrefs, or SEMrush. Confirm that traffic comes from diverse sources, not just one paid ad. Check organic rankings for key product terms. If a site depends on one or two top keywords, a ranking drop could tank traffic.
Operational and Supplier Review: Talk with suppliers. Make sure they can scale with you and that they ship reliably. Review order fulfillment processes. Confirm inventory levels. If the business uses drop shipping, test the shipping speed yourself.
Financing Your $100K Investment
You may not want to use all your cash. In that case, you may want to use other business acquisition funding options available, such as bank or SBA loans, seller financing, or earn-outs. Or you can let the business’s own cash flow pay down debt.
Here are the most common financing options to consider:
Personal Funds vs. Bank or SBA Loans
Using your own money gives you simplicity. Bank loans or SBA loans can finance up to 90% of the purchase price. SBA loans often offer low rates around 7% over 10 years. You must meet credit requirements and provide collateral.
Seller Financing and Earn-Outs
In seller financing, the seller takes a note for part of the sale price. You pay over time from the store’s profits. Earn-outs mean you pay extra if the business hits revenue or profit targets after you buy it. These structures lower your upfront cash needs.
Buyouts Using Business Cash Flow
This option lets you use the store’s own earnings to pay down the purchase loan. You take a loan based on the business assets or expected cash flow. That lets you buy a bigger store than your cash alone would allow. Always test your numbers to make sure profits cover loan payments, even if sales dip.
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.
Post-Acquisition Growth Strategies To Hit $1M Goal
Having followed the above steps, you have most likely ended up with an e-commerce business with strong growth potential.
So, all you have to do now is implement proven growth strategies to help you boost revenue and profit fast.
These strategies include:
#1. Optimize Paid and Organic Marketing
Scale paid ads on Facebook, Google, or TikTok. Test ad creatives and audiences. On the organic side, improve SEO by adding product guides, blogs, and internal links. Focus on the fastest wins, like improving meta titles and descriptions to raise click-through rates.
#2. Expand The Product Catalog and Upsells
Analyze your best sellers and add related products. Offer bundles or upsells at checkout. Even a 10% increase in average order value can move profit quickly.
#3. Streamline Operations and Costs
Negotiate with suppliers for bulk discounts. Automate email marketing for abandoned carts and post-purchase follow-ups. Cut unnecessary expenses, like underperforming ad channels or costly apps.
Here are additional tactics to help you turn small tweaks into big growth:
Lean on zero-party data: Run a quick site quiz that asks shoppers about their style or needs. Tailor follow-up emails and ads to each quiz result. You’ll see open rates climb and cart adds rise.
Turn customer reviews into fresh ads: Pull direct quotes and pair them with behind-the-scenes product clips. That raw honesty beats polished promos and converts cold traffic faster.
Launch a “restock alarm” widget: Let your customers sign up to be notified the moment sold-out items return. Many will buy on impulse rather than wait.
Create a private VIP group on a chat platform (Discord or WhatsApp): Invite your best customers, drop sneak previews of new launches, and let them vote on packaging designs. Their buzz will drive organic shares.
Automate “price drop” alerts with a tiny app: If a product’s profit margin stays above your set threshold, slice its price by 5% at midnight. Watch your slow-moving SKUs clear out and your overall revenue tick up.
Build a one-click upsell: This simply shows a complementary product the instant someone hits “Buy.” Keep it under $20 and watch your average order value jump.
Related: What To Do After Buying An E-Commerce Business? (Expert Tips)
Exit Plan: Selling Your Store for Top Dollar
After you boost revenue and profit, it’s time to plan your exit. In this section, we give you tips to help you plan your exit early on.
Probably one of the things you should consider doing is to clean up your books. Make sure every expense and sale shows clearly in your accounting. This gives buyers confidence in your numbers.
Next, gather your key documents in one folder. Include crucial info like traffic reports, supplier contracts, and standard operating procedures. Buyers pay more for a business they can run without guesswork.
Reach out to a broker or list on a marketplace that fits your store size. Share your clean financials and growth charts. Show how you increased profit with real data and dates. That proof drives up your sale price.
Offer a 60- to 90-day transition plan so the new owner can take over smoothly. A clear handoff and solid records help you command a higher multiple and close the deal faster.
Related: How to Make a Business Acquisition a Smooth Transition
Case Study: Turning $100K into $1M
Still wondering if it's really possible to turn $100K into $1M? Here are some real-life examples to show you how it’s been done:
Case #1. Say Yes! Enterprises’ Accessory Store
In October 2018, Say Yes! Enterprises (SYE) acquired a women’s accessories and décor e-commerce store (reportedly at a mid-six-figure price point).
Within 11 months, they boosted the store’s profitability from roughly 9% to well over 25% by doing the following:
Overhauling its social media ads
Email marketing
Inventory management
They then sold the business for 47.8% more than they paid, effectively tripling their original investment when you include retained earnings.
Case #2: John Chen’s Flippa Flip
John Chen bought a struggling jewelry e-commerce site on Flippa for just $7,500 in 2017.
He then improved the following key areas:
Overhauled the product offerings
Refined ad campaigns
Optimized the site’s UX
Over the next two years, the store's revenue climbed to over $200K per month at peak, and he sold the business for just over $500,000.
While his initial investment was under $10K, his methods mirror those used on higher-priced acquisitions.
This simply confirms that with the right strategy, you can scale even a small purchase to a half-million-dollar exit.
NOTE: $100K-to-$1M e-commerce business acquisition deals are relatively rare, as many deals happen privately or under NDA. Still, these examples illustrate the core playbook: buy a cash-flowing business, improve marketing and operations, then exit at a multiple of your investment.
Related: Building Wealth Through E-Commerce Business Acquisitions
Common Risks When Buying Online Businesses (and How to Avoid Them)
Buying an internet-based business comes with its own set of risks.
And spotting them early in advance can help you avoid the usual pitfalls.
Common Risks (traffic drops, hidden liabilities):
A store might lose Amazon rankings or Google traffic. A supplier can raise prices or go out of business. Hidden debts or pending tax issues can surface after the sale. To minimize these risks, push for escrow accounts, holdbacks, or seller warranties.
Legal, Tax, and Compliance Considerations
Work with a lawyer to draft a purchase agreement. Verify sales tax obligations in each state or country. Confirm that trademarks, copyrights, and customer data comply with privacy laws. Address any open legal disputes before closing.
Related: Pros And Cons Of Acquisitions: Is Buying A Business Worth It?
Conclusion
Buying an existing e-commerce store offers a clear, fast path to high returns.
You skip the early struggles of a startup and gain a working business.
You control the risk through solid due diligence and creative financing.
After purchase, you focus on growth strategies that raise revenue and profits quickly.
With careful planning and execution, you can see your initial $100 K investment grow to $1M.
What if someone helped you find the right e-commerce deal, handle due diligence, negotiate smartly, and grow it for a 7-figure exit?
That’s exactly what our Acquisition Partnership does: We help you invest in a high-potential store, run it on your behalf, and scale it 2–4x. Don’t sit on your capital; let us turn your $100K into 7 figures starting today.
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