Safety by Design – The Trusted Marketplace

Flippa invented the space – we started in 2009 –  and today, more online business owners, investors and buyers choose Flippa to buy and sell online businesses. From bootstrapped to #1, we have over 3M registered users, see and talk to over 5000 new online business owners monthly and sell over 20,000 assets each year. Did you know there are over ~600,000 monthly searches from investors and buyers seeking to acquire websites, apps and online businesses on the Flippa platform?  

In the past Flippa didn’t provide the resources and services it does today, however in the last three-years we have taken a relentless approach to marketplace trust and safety.  We are obsessed with customer happiness and we measure it. With a net promoter score of 62 and 44% repeat buying / selling activity our customers are clearly loyal and this is no doubt a result of the significant improvements we have made. 

Of course, buying and selling is a complex process. Flippa encourages all buyers and sellers, at any price point or asset type, to not only have a contract of sale or asset purchase agreement as part of any transaction, but to also take advantage of the many partner services and advice available on the blog – check out the Getting Started, Buyers, Sellers, and Success Stories sections to learn and get tips from other buyers and sellers. 

So what do we do? 

For Buyers

1. Listing vetting. Flippa has a global marketplace integrity team and listing review team (10 people currently). Each revenue generating asset goes through a 25 point check before going live.
   
2. Price checks. The listing review team’s sole remit is to review listings and ensure the quality and price of the business is accurate and measured against comparable data. For more details on how our Intelligent Valuation Engine works to accurately price business, read here.
   
3. Quality score. Call this our secret sauce. We measure the quality of the seller, the listing and the asset. This cannot be gamed. We then provide some helpful filters that take into consideration our integrated data sources including traffic, domain authority, revenue and other. It’s all there at your fingertips. 
   
4. Due Diligence. Flippa’s market leading Due Diligence gives buyers a comprehensive report of financial and operational performance of any asset. This service is currently used by leading industry brokers, institutional buyers and private equity. There are three levels of service across risks, opportunities and analysis periods of one to three years and reports run from from high-level to detailed.
   
5. Verification through data. Data, data, data. Flippa loves data that helps to verify the asset as much as it does provide insight to buyers. There are over 10 different data integrations including Quickbooks Online, Shopify, WooCommerce, Stripe, Google Analytics, SEMrush and more. This information cannot be doctored and is the truest form of verification.  When buyers look at a listing, we encourage them to look for the “Verified By” modules on each of the listings. 
   
6. Flippa Legal is a game-changer and 100’s of customers use the service monthly. Off-the-shelf templates don’t always fit the bill. With Flippa Legal, an expert group of lawyers are on hand to assist with the transaction. There are packages available and the size and complexity of the transaction will help you to determine which service is right for you.
7. Escrow protections. It’s free! Escrow.com services as a layer of safety. First though, we conduct a ‘red flag check’. Now it’s over to you, there’s a mandatory inspection period and we encourage buyers to use this time to review the assets further in accordance with the contract of sale or asset purchase agreement. Sellers benefit from this service too (see point 12 below).
   
8. The behavior of sellers. Account managers and the global customer service team monitor listing activity, comments and communications between buyers and sellers. If there’s any suspicious activity, we call it out and instantly suspend or ban the seller or alternatively, you can always nudge us and we’ll come running.
   
9. Fraud Detection. Nobody gets passed us. We stop them before you have to. In the last year, thousands of bad actors have been instantly identified and removed from our platform automatically and programmatically using the very best digital trust and safety suite on the market.
   
10. Post-sale hand off. 95% of sales come with post-sales support. If they don’t simply ask the seller to provide this as a condition of sale. It’s a standard requirement. Nothing is off the table. When Martin Bispels purchased Upper Park Disc Golf the seller stayed on as a partner and product designer and they worked this aspect into the agreement and terms of sale. Consider your options and negotiate the terms that best suit you. 

For Sellers

11. Buyer verifications: We do them! Buyers must go through a credit card authorization prior to placing an offer. We also identify which buyers have verified their accounts and have had a positive history of buying behaviour on Flippa. Coming soon is our all new ‘buyer qualification’ service. Sellers will be able to instantly verify those buyers who are acquisition fit.
    
12. Escrow protections. Flippa has an integrated escrow and payment service. Always use it and never transfer assets without funds recognition.
    
13. Matching by humans. Our programmatic matching is world-class but even we make mistakes so our team will curate relevant buyers who are cash-ready and have a positive transaction history.
    
14. Discretion. For bigger businesses and higher value assets, Flippa offers Flippa Private, an off market service where a dedicated and experienced Flippa Broker works with sellers to match their business with a vetted and curated small network of qualified buyers.
    
15. Broker network. Flippa also has a network of 3rd party brokers that sellers can leverage to sell their assets and add an additional layer of buyer verification. Check them out here and choose broker matching when listing with Flippa.
    

We are here to help. We’ve revamped Flippa with safety in mind. Our global team is available and can assist you with understanding deals, accessing Flippa services and ensuring you are satisfied and safe every step of the way. As the biggest and a trusted marketplace it’s our commitment to you!  Reach out if we can help – [email protected]