Selling a ready-made business often turns into a long and complicated process. It may take years before the owner finds a buyer for his company. One of the most effective tools for selling a ready-made business is online marketplace. We looked over the main platforms where you can place an offer for sale of a business, and also analyzed how effective online marketplaces are in selling a ready-made business and attracting investments.
When are online marketplaces effective?
First of all, online marketplaces are suitable for selling small businesses (in some cases medium). The fact is that professional business brokers will not take such an enterprise to task, as the sale of a small cafe and restaurant chain will take the same effort, but the profit will vary significantly. Therefore, online marketplaces are primarily the best way to find a buyer when selling a small business. The following advantages of the online marketplace as a tool for selling a business can be distinguished:
- Low cost of offers placement.
- Minimum time-wasting - you can simply duplicate your offer on several resources and wait for the buyer’s call.
- Wide outreach - online marketplaces allow you to advertise your offer among a vast audience.
- Private entrepreneurs and investors with a check of up to $ 100,000 usually look for businesses offered for sale on such online marketplaces.
It is possible to place an offer for sale of a business on both general portals of announcements as well as specialized platforms. Each of these options has its advantages and disadvantages.
General (unspecialized) online marketplaces
Among online marketplaces with a broad subject heading list, the following portals are the largest in Ukraine:
- OLX
- Ria.com
- Besplatka
- Prom.ua
- Ogolosha
- Aviso.ua
All these online marketplaces have two main advantages: low cost of offers placement (in comparison with specialized portals) and relatively high website traffic, which provides a large number of impressions.
However, please note that most of the impressions of your offer on marketplaces mentioned above are likely to be attributed to untargeted audience. It should also be noted that decision makers to acquire medium and large businesses do not search on online marketplaces at all. In addition, if an offer for sale of an enterprise is posted on a large number of non-specialized portals, then the whole market already knows about it, which adversely affects the seller’s reputation and can serve as a basis for reducing the cost of a business. The administration of unspecialized websites is not involved in the moderation of advertisement, and your offer for sale will be lost very soon among hundreds of low-quality or sometimes fake offers. Based on the foregoing, we do not recommend selling an operating and successful business on general services and online marketplaces.
Specialized classifieds sites for business sales
Each classifieds site, which specializes only on selling a ready-made business, has its own specifics of operating, so each case must be considered separately.
- InVenture
The company is one of the leaders on the market for selling small and medium-sized businesses, commercial real estate and attracting investments in operating enterprises with experience in closing many transactions. InVenture is also the largest online media publication in Ukraine dedicated to direct investments and venture capital, therefore the main audience of the portal is the solvent part of the Ukrainian population: professional investors, investment funds, strategic investors, investment bankers and private entrepreneurs. Among all online services for selling business in Ukraine only InVenture has an English version / localization.
- Web: http://inventure.com.ua
- Website traffic per month (according to a.pr-cy.ru service): 114 000
- Start of activity: 2010
- Number of investment offers: The company database contains more than 3,000 investment offers, some of them are publicly available.
- Cost of services: depending on selected suite of services, the price varies from UAH 499 to UAH 18 000.
- Staff: The company has about 20 employees (partners in various business areas: agricultural sector, manufacturing, alternative energy, commercial real estate, IT, etc.; investment analysts; project managers). The company also has representative offices in Odessa and Lviv.
- BizRating
BizRating is the Ukrainian online portal for the sale of businesses and franchises. Offers for sale, posted on BizRating portal, are also posted on InterCredit partner resource.
- Web: http://bizrating.com.ua
- Website traffic per month (according to a.pr-cy.ru service): 31 000
- Start of activity: 2009
- Number of investment offers: 2378 investment offers
- Cost of services: depending on the selected suite of services, the price varies from UAH 1,200 to UAH 25,000.
- Staff: 1-2 managers (online offers placement support)
- Startup.Network
Startup.Network is a platform that specializes on dealing and promotion of startups, projects with an IT component. The main function of the portal is to ensure communication between entrepreneurs, consultants, investors.
- Web: https://startup.ua
- Website traffic per month (according to a.pr-cy.ru service): 15 400
- Start of activity: 2007
- Number of investment offers: 5113 business sale offers (shares)
- Cost of services: not specified
- Staff: 3 managers (event managers)
- Ahenstvo hotovoho biznesu
Ahenstvo hotovoho biznesu is a consulting company that helps entrepreneurs to sell or buy a ready-made business in Ukraine.
- Web: http://www.agbiz.kiev.ua / http://bizmart.info
- Website traffic per month (according to a.pr-cy.ru service): 635/580
- Start of activity: 2004
- Number of investment offers: 1672 offers for sale of a ready-made business, 742 offers for sale of commercial real estate and land, 31 offers for attracting investments.
- Cost of services: depending on the selected suite of services, the price varies from UAH 250 to UAH 3500.
- Business brokers team availability and work specifics: 2 managers
- Business Asset Exchange
Business Asset Exchange is an international alliance of sites for the sale and purchase of a ready-made business, commercial real estate, franchises and other commercial assets.
- Web: https://business-asset.com/ua
- Website traffic per month (according to a.pr-cy.ru service): 78,700
- Start of activity: 2012
- Number of investment offers: 2072 operating business objects in Ukraine (as of October 21, 2019)
- Cost of services: all services are free
- Business brokers’ team availability and work specifics: there is no full-time team in Ukraine as such, since Business Asset Exchange is an alliance of business selling sites, a community and therefore cannot operate as a full-fledged business broker.
- BusinessMarket
BusinessMarket is a platform for communication between sellers and buyers of a ready-made business.
- Web: https://biznesmarket.com.ua
- Website traffic per month (according to a.pr-cy.ru service): 14 000
- Year of foundation: 2018
- Number of investment offers: 2004
- Cost of services: the user can post 2 offers on the portal within 30 days for free, paying extra charge the user can increase the number of offers posted, bring to the top of search results, place it on the main page. The maximum cost of paid services is UAH 600 for “Pro Master” suite.
- Business brokers’ team availability and work specifics: the portal does not have its own team of business brokers, a business seller can use a website only as a service for posting an offer.
Conclusion
Do not forget that online marketplaces are suitable for small business sales only. When selling medium- and large-sized businesses, an individual approach is required. You can find out detailed information about terms and conditions of sales of medium and large businesses, as well as the conditions for attracting larger investments, on the page for investment applicants.
