Selling pre-built websites?

[BigAl]

I have an idea for a business to sell high quality pre-built websites with everything fully functional including, hosting, and domain, products, shopping cart ect.. I know this is not a revolutionary new idea and lots of people sell websites online but, In my searching for websites to buy I find these websites selling for $1,000-$10,000. I think its a little extreme for something I could put together my self $200-$300.

My question is, would alot of people be intrested in fully functional websites that they can buy for $400-$500?

I'd consider doing this if alot of people would be intrested. I could promote these sites for sale on places like ebay and <snip>.

What do you all think?

Thanks,

[edited by: physics at 7:07 am (utc) on Sep. 23, 2005]
[edit reason] Please see TOS about url drops. [/edit]

[BradleyT]

The ones that generally sell for $1,000-$10,000 have existing traffic and are profitable.

[BigAl]

Not always, yeah I saw a few that had trickle in traffic but that could be cause they are running ad campaigns. Hardly worth the asking price. I can pay $40 for 5,000 hits too!

[BradleyT]

Just because a site lists for $10,000 doesn't mean it sells.

I hang out at quite a few of the major places that sell websites and I've never seen a shell site with no revenue and no traffic go for $10,000.

[wheel]

5 years ago this was exactly my business model. I had - and still have - far and away the bestest and mostest features for websites in my niche. You'd think people would be breaking down my door. They're not. In fact it's a very small part of my revenue and a big part of my expenses.

First, you won't keep everyone happy. There's always another design or feature that someone else has that they consider of vital importance. (that's not a rare instance, that's the common response) Tech support is a headache - even if nothing's wrong and the software's dead easy to use. You're up against their neighbour's 16 year old kid or the offshore company that works for almost free.

Second, you sell all this for $300, then spend 8 hours on the phone over the next year doing tech support or sales questions on ecommerce, credit cards, templates, etc.

For what it's worth, I recently raised my prices (almost doubling them) for many of the above reasons. Many of my customers just paid. Some complained and left. Happy to see them go - they're a drain on my company.

In short, this isn't a great idea. What you're planning on doing is entering an extremely competitive and mature market and trying to compete on price by the looks of it.(think about that for a moment). I speak from experience when I assure you competing on price isn't going to be an advantage for you at all. If your planned competitors are selling at 3 times your expected pricing, there's a very good reason for that (and again, in a market as competitive as this, it's not because it can be done cheaper).

Anyway, that's just my opinion :). I'm transitioning away from this business model as fast as I can.

[BigAl]

Thanks wheel,

It was only an idea. On to the next one!

[bhartzer]

A while back you proabably could have sold pre-built sites. However, that's not the norm now.

People are looking for sites that contain unique content, PR, and links--and rankings and traffic are a plus.

There's still a market for pre-built site. They just have to be out of the sandbox and have unique content.