How to Sell Your Shopify Store

Published: July 21, 2017

Are you thinking of selling your Shopify business?

The number of Shopify stores being bought and sold on Flippa is growing rapidly.

We thought a mini-guide on How to Sell Your Shopify Store would make the process much easier for you.The demand for Shopify stores has increased drastically, so much so that we’ve made it easier than ever for buyers to find the hottest Shopify stores for sale on Flippa with the launch of our Shopify marketplace. This new marketplace brings increased visibility for Shopify stores, allowing sellers to reach over 1 million Flippa users easily.

List Your Shopify Store For Sale on Flippa

Why Sell Your Shopify Store?

There are plenty of reasons why people sell their online businesses.

Still, the most common reasons are that owners don’t have the time to run their business or are looking to sell the business to invest in a new business opportunity or help put a down payment on something big (like a house or car).

Setting Up Your Auction

Once you’re ready to sell your Shopify store, simply go to our sell your business listing page. Our listing builder will walk you through the rest of the steps.

What information should I provide?

When creating your listing, it is important to provide as much information by being as thorough as possible. This includes going into detail on every aspect of the business, including operations, revenue, and traffic.

Verifying traffic is simple if you have Google Analytics installed on your site! While creating your listing, you will be prompted to use our Google Analytics API to verify your traffic automatically. You must look at your Shopify Analytics and manually input the data if Google Analytics is not installed. You should take screenshots of your analytics if you are using Shopify Analytics.

Beyond that, it is important to take screenshots of your revenue and factor in all the operating costs of running the business. Once you have inputted this information into the listing, don’t forget to upload these screenshots as attachments so that users can see the revenue for themselves.

We recommend outlining each activity with the time requirements and how this can be done for operations. For example, spend 3 hours a week posting on the business’s social media account and 2 hours per week placing orders. Your operations may look like this:

Hours of work per week: 5

Task 1: Social Media Posting (3 hours)

I spend about 3 hours per week scheduling posts on Instagram and Facebook. These posts typically outline any promotions that are going on or any new products that have been added to the store.

Task 2: Placing Orders (2 hours)

This is done once a day and typically takes 15-30 minutes daily, depending on how many total orders are placed. A third party fulfills all orders, so you just need to place the orders with them directly.

Once your listing is ready for launch, we recommend reviewing your auction and looking to see if you’ve missed any details that a buyer might want to know. The more information you have on your listing, the fewer questions you’ll answer during the auction!

How much can I sell my Shopify store for?

If you’re unsure how much you can sell your Shopify business, we’ve written a blog post that will help with just that:

How much is my website worth? Website valuations explained

How long does the auction process take?

We recommend setting your auction time to last for 10-14 days. This gives enough buyers to perform their due diligence on your asset and gives you time to answer any questions they may have.

Once the reserve price has been met, and your auction ends, sellers typically receive their payments in about one week. This depends on how quickly you (the seller) can transfer over asset ownership.

Auction Process: What to Expect?

Now that your Shopify listing is live, what can you expect the process to be like?

For starters, it’s essential to treat everyone as if they will be the person buying your Shopify store.

As with the listing process, try to answer questions as thoroughly as possible. By doing so, buyers not only know what your store is like, but you also establish an excellent connection with them, increasing trust.

Since it’s likely you and the buyer have never met, trust can play a big factor in whether a user decides to buy an asset or not.

One great tip is if anyone asks a great question that wasn’t covered in your listing description, copy the question and the answer and paste it into the comments section below your listing. This will help you avoid answering the same question again and let potential buyers know that you’re willing to go the extra step, which helps build trust.

Don’t forget, if you have spent a lot of time building your listing, the number of questions you receive will be much lower than some other listings!

Transferring Assets & Getting Paid

Rather than transferring assets and setting the site up on a new cPanel like a WordPress or PHP site, Shopify makes transferring assets to a new owner very simple.

Note: Before transferring any assets to the new owner, either make sure the funds are in the Flippa Escrow account or you have received the funds via PayPal. If you have not received the funds or the funds are not in escrow, do not transfer any assets.

After verifying payment, the first step is to add the buyer as a staff member for the Shopify store. From there, you’ll need to navigate to the account tab under settings and make the user the account owner. Verify with the buyer that they have control of the account.

Now that he owns the website, you must transfer the domain to his name. If you bought the domain through Shopify, you could do this through OpenSRS.

For OpenSRS, navigate from the ‘Manage your Domain’ menu and click on any of the following: Organization Contact, Admin Contact, or Billing Contact. Once there, put in the new owner’s information and select YES for admin contact, technical contact, and billing contact, then save it.

If the domain were registered through GoDaddy or any other domain provider, you would need to check with them directly on how to transfer the domain.

Now that the domain and website have been transferred to the new owner, it is time to get paid! Ensure all social media accounts relating to the site have been transferred over. From here, the new owner has to verify they received the assets, and the money is yours!

Want to find Shopify stores for sale on Flippa? Start your search now.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should I sell my Shopify store?

This is entirely up to you. If you feel you have made the most of your Shopify online store and want to try your hand at another eCommerce business, or perhaps you’re tired of the dips and spikes of the online retail industry, selling your store could be a good option.

How do I prepare my Shopify business for sale?

If you want to list your business on a Shopify exchange marketplace, you need to do a few things first:

When selling products, ensure your inventory is accounted for and check that your shopping cart is working correctly.
You’ll also want to remove your bank account information from the Shopify account settings and change the Shopify admin logins. Ensure the account owner details are changed.
Make sure your processes are all in working order – from the supply of products through to delivery.
Organize your finances and be sure you have a clear collection of financial data that shows how well your store is doing.
Make employment contracts for anyone you have hired during the business. Then the new owner can decide if they want to keep those staff on board.
List any stipulations that must be kept with the new ownership, such as store names if the brand is highly reputable, payments processing terms, eCommerce hosting, etc.

How much is my store worth?

When buying and selling an eCommerce store, the value is the most crucial aspect of the sale. Sellers want to believe their business online is worth a fortune. However, the amount the business is worth is usually based on finances, not an idea.

It could depend on your monthly net income, annual figures, sales taxes, revenue and traffic sources for your site, and growth history – having a detailed report from the previous 12 months would be ideal. A valuation tool gives an estimate that appeals to the potential buyer and ensures business owners get a good return.

Where can I sell my Shopify store?

While there are a few platforms you could use online, store owners often prefer Flippa because it is so easy to use. People buy businesses on Flippa every day. We have a great partner program, and our system makes payment processing easy.

The Flippa sales channel for selling online businesses is efficient — you need to make sure your business stands out from others on the platform. You’ll find a range of video tutorials that can help.

How much does it cost to list and sell with Flippa?

Listing fees start from $29.

You can also choose to upgrade and get access to enhanced reach and key services to support you through the sales process.

Flippa also charges a success fee, and this starts from 5%. For more information about pricing and fees, refer Flippa’s pricing page here.

Will it take longer to sell my online store?

If you have an online store on Shopify and want to list it on an exchange marketplace, listing your business with Flippa is the best option online.

With Flippa, you can sell your online store easier and faster than on other platforms. It could be sold within a few days so that you can transfer ownership asap. The time it takes to sell your store could depend on a few things: