Another busy week here at FE International with three businesses being listed this week. If you’re looking for a successful SaaS product, we have a $1.175M listing in the automobile industry that produced a net MRR churn at 2% over the last year. Not looking for Saas? We also have a listing involved with alternative medicine, a fast-growing niche and an affiliate site selling computer accessories with over 40K monthly visitors. Are those not piquing your interest? We have plenty of listings for you to browse here.
Meanwhile in the Oval Office, Trump has been busy ordering executive actions. Since his appointment, the stock market has show favor to the Trump administration, but what will the future hold for online business owners? The newly appointed FCC chairman, Ajit Pai is well known for being opposed to net neutrality- the idea that network providers should not discriminate against content when servicing customers. This is definitely something to keep your eyes on if your site is heavily content-based. The US was also pulled out of a trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which you can read more about how this might affect e-commerce business owners in the news briefs below.
If you’re an FBA seller worried about the possibility of Amazon suspending your account, there will be an insurance policy just for you that you can also read more about below.
Concerning conferences, Thomas will be heading to Germany to speak at FemtoConf in two weeks, so be sure to look out for him then and let us know if you want to set up a meeting. In the meantime, you can see his past speaking gigs on the FE YouTube Channel.
Read below for more on the TPP deal, insurance for Amazon FBA sellers, Google banning 200 publishers and a MailChimp and Facebook integration.
Deal Highlights
Display Advertising – Alternative Medicine – $3.7K net/mo
- 14% compound monthly growth rate
- Fast-growing and evergreen niche
- Low owner time requirement
- 18K+ Facebook followers
Yearly Net Profit: $44K
Asking Price: $115K
Affiliate – Computer Accessories – $4.1K net/mo
- 40% compound monthly growth rate (last six months)
- Low owner involvement
- 40K monthly visitors
- Growing evergreen niche
Yearly Net Profit: $49K
Asking Price: $106K
SaaS – Automotive Dealerships – $27.5K net/mo
- Average $3,790 customer lifetime value over last twelve months
- Net MRR churn averaged 2% over last twelve months
- Exclusive partnership with an industry leader
- 8 Years of product development
- Full team of contractors in place
Yearly Net Profit: $330K
Asking Price: $1.175M
Sold
Display Advertising – Education – $860 net/mo
In the News…
What Does Saying Bye to the Trans-Pacific Partnership Mean to E-commerce?
In the first 100 days of President Trump in office, he has been busy implementing his promises from the campaign trail. An action he has taken includes withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal between 12 nations that would create an economic partnership between the US and Pacific Rim countries to level the playing field with China.
What will this mean for e-commerce? Small Business Trends suspects that because many e-commerce businesses benefit from low overseas manufacturing costs, they will be affected by higher trade tariffs (something promised by the Trump administration).
Online product sales account for a third of US retail. In 2016, e-commerce sales reached $341.7 billion with a 14.6% YoY increase. Part of this increase can be attributed to services like Amazon FBA. However, there are other small businesses that have manufacturers in China. A higher tariff on products from China would increase prices and lower profits for sellers.
No one is sure what will happen until another action takes place, but e-commerce owners and FBA sellers should keep up to date with any new trade policies. We will also be keeping an eye out for any changes, so stay tuned.
Insurance For Suspended Amazon Accounts
Now that Amazon has been acting against FBA sellers who are breaching policy guidelines, seller anxiety is high. Fortunately, Ashlin Hadden Insurance Agency (underwritten by Lloyd’s of London) will be administering a new insurance product on February 1st, that will help FBA sellers get their accounts reinstated and paid if the reinstatement runs over 72 hours.
A reinstatement will only be granted if Amazon mistakenly pulls your FBA account. The insurance product will not cover actual fraudulent accounts. When Amazon decides to pull an account, there is often no notice or reason. Currently, in order to refute an Amazon breach, sellers have to file an appeal against their suspension and wait to hear back from Amazon.
With the roll out of the insurance product, during the appeal, Ashlin Hadden Insurance Agency will walk you through the appeal and reinstatement process. To learn more you can check out the announcement here or contact Ashlin Hadden Insurance.
Google Bans 200 Publishers
In Q4 2016, Google banned 200 publishers pushing fake news from AdSense. If you remember during the election, Facebook and Google were harshly criticized for publishing fake articles about the two presidential candidates. The result – a headcount of 200 fake news sites, not allowed on the AdSense network.
Google reported that it took down 1.7 billion ads for violating the policy. Sticking true to its promise, Google also has improved its technology to detect these phony ads.
Run Your Facebook Ads From MailChimp
MailChimp announced that it launched a new tool that lets its users create Facebook ads directly from MailChimp. If you’re a MailChimp user, your marketing just became a lot more convenient. In order to gather data and learn about your target audience, Facebook is definitely the go-to platform. MailChimp recognizes that 16% of its 15 million users are e-commerce companies, who contribute nearly half of its current revenue. Facebook is also a popular social platform for e-commerce businesses, so it makes sense that MailChimp would decide on this integration.
MailChimp users will be able to use their email lists to target existing customers, target Facebook lookalike audiences based off characteristics of the email lists and specific audiences on Facebook. There will be no additional fee on top of Facebook ad costs and users will be able to track campaigns from within MailChimp. If you often run Facebook ads from your MailChimp lists, you should definitely try this tool out.