What is Flippa and how to buy, sell and make money from it

 Flippa is the largest and most popular online buy and sell website. Unfortunately, many do not know anything about it, and they do not know the size of the opportunities and profit potential that can be achieved through it.

The site is easy to use, through which you can sell or buy any site within minutes, through simple steps, and in a very safe way.

In this article, we introduce you to the Flippa website, and we explain to you with pictures how to create an account on it and document it, and we will explain the steps of buying and selling through it, and finally we will explain 3 different ways to make money from the Flippa website.

What is Flippa website trading?

Flippa is simply an online marketplace where you can buy and sell websites, you can offer a website you own for sale or buy any website you like that is displayed on the platform.

Flippa contains a huge number of websites in different fields. The sites for sale may be sites specialized in written content (blogs), financial services sites, or even huge online stores, and even applications.

Site sellers display their sites on Flippa with the required price, and the amount of profits generated by these sites per month, site sellers add other information about their sites such as the age of the site, the method of making profits, the number of daily visitors and others.

Site buyers browse the Flippa site to find sites that suit their interests and features, and when they find a site they want to buy, they view its information, and buy it immediately or bid on it (we will explain the process of buying and selling sites on Flippa in detail later).

Buyers can also register in the Flippa mailing list to have the best deals sent to their email. This is done by going to the Deal page and choosing the rate of sending alerts and emails to be either daily, weekly or monthly.

Simply the site's goal is to provide a special type of e-commerce whose main commodity is websites.

Finally, the site deals with the purchase and sale of sites as a personal investment, in other words, you can sell a site that you own that provides you with monthly profits commensurate with a specific buyer, or you can play the role of the buyer and buy a site for the purpose of obtaining the profits that it achieves, which you see fit the size of your investment.

Here is the link to the official Flippa website

How to create a Flippa account?

In general, you can view the sites offered for sale through Flippa without registering on the site. You can search for specific sites by searching by name, or by browsing the site category (online store or blog) without logging in or creating an account.

Browsing without creating an account or logging in allows you to browse the sites offered for sale on Flippa and some of their details only, but seeing all the details of the sites such as the number of visitors and sources of earnings is not available until after creating an account.

                                                                           

Of course, it is better to create an account on the site to be able to see all its sections and features better.

Here are the steps to create an account on Flippa with illustrations:

First Step: Access to the registration page

After switching to Philippa's signature; Click on Sign Up referred to in the previous image, to go to the account creation page shown in the image below:

                       

                                                           

As you may have noticed, on the previous page, you can create an account by:

Add the required data in the fields in the image and press Continue.

Register with Google (your account is linked to a Google email address of your choice).

If you already have an account on Flippa, you can click on Sign in to access it.

Second Step: Register with a Google email

In short, we recommend that you register using a Google email, after completing this step, the following image will appear:

                                                                                    

Before filling in the fields in the previous image, you must specify your purpose for creating an account on the Flippa website:

Choose I'm looking to buy if you want to buy a site.

Choose I'm looking to sell if you want to sell a site.

As you noted, the rest of the fields do not need complicated data. You can add your company name, if any (optional), then specify the source from which you knew the Flippa website, your country, and your phone number, then agree to the terms and conditions of the site and click Create my account

I will choose I’m looking to buy to complete the registration process, do not worry, the steps for creating a seller or buyer account are considered one, through the account you created, whatever your choice, you will be available to buy and sell sites at the same time.

Step Three: Get to know Flippa and answer some questions

Now that you are done with the registration process; Flippa will start by introducing you to some information, and collecting some data from you in a process that takes about two minutes.

Click on Begin Onboarding that will appear to you after clicking on the create my account button in the previous step, to start the process of introducing you to the site:

Get to know tips and advice: The first section in the process of introducing you to the site is tips and advice.

                                                                                    

This step shows you:

The effect of how honest you answer the site's questions on the results you get while searching for sites.

Add useful information in your account so sellers can determine your suitability to purchase their site.

After you finish adding your information, you will be able to access information about special deals.

Click Continue to go to the next page.

The first question: Why are you looking for a business online?

                                                                                       

Through this question, Flippa would like to know why you are looking for a job online (it is intended to buy websites), choose the option that suits you from the options in the previous image and then go to the next two questions on the same page.

The first question asks if you would like to invest in financing a site instead of buying it, and the second question asks if you are an accredited investor or not. (Simply speaking, an accredited investor is an investor who meets specific conditions from some competent legal authorities).

Flippa provides you with more information about its definition of an accredited investor, by clicking on the question mark next to the question.

As you can see, you can be considered an approved Flippa investor if:

• Your net income is 200 thousand US dollars, or your total income and the income of your spouse exceeded 300 thousand dollars annually during the previous two years, and it is expected that it will reach the same amounts during this year.
• Your net worth, or the total property value of you and your spouse, is more than $1 million.
• Represents an entity or company that owns $5 million in assets.
• You invest on behalf of an investment fund that has $5 million in assets, and is aware of the risks of investing in startups.
• Holds a FINRA Administrative License.

Answer yes or no as appropriate and press next to move to the next question.

Second question: Tell us more about your experience in online business?

                                                                                     

Flippa asks you how many sites (or projects) you currently own, and what areas of sites you have experience with.

  Answer the two questions as appropriate for you, then click next to go to the next page.

Question 3: What business model are you interested in?

                                 

                                                          

Now choose any of the business models you are interested in investing in, and click Next to go to the next page.

Fourth question: What areas are you interested in?

                                     

                                                     

Here it is time to choose the field that you are interested in, the areas of sites available through the Flippa site are diverse and numerous, they contain areas such as business, education, health, and others. Choose the fields that suit you, then click Next to go to the next page.

The fifth question: How many types of business do you intend to buy?

                                                                                             

On this page, Flippa asks you to select the number of projects or sites you would like to purchase. If you are not sure or have not decided yet how many sites to buy from Flippa choose Not sure, then click Next to see the next page.

Question 6: What is the size of your total budget?

                                                                                           

Here you will need to set the maximum limit for your Flippa application, type in the amount that suits you and then click Next to go to the next page.

Question 7: What is your preferred transaction size?

                                                                                            

Here you will need to select the lowest and largest amount that is appropriate for you to purchase per site. Flippa also asks if you will need funding from a third party to provide the value of the sites you will buy. Set your budget, choose what works for you, then move on to the next step.

Question 8: Do you have a preference to buy from a seller in a particular place?

                                                                                                     

If you prefer to purchase websites from a seller in a particular country, you can select that. You can also ignore this question, and press Next to go to the next and final step.

Question 9: Add a picture and description?

                                                                                         

In this optional step, Flippa asks you to add a personal photo to add more professionalism to your account on the site, preferably a professional photo designed based on the sizes requested by the site.

The site also allows you to choose between showing your full name or your first name only, and finally you can add a profile about you or your company in About Me.

You can skip this step entirely and click on Complete to finish the registration process.

If you do not have a picture that fits the site's sizes, you can use your personal picture on your LinkedIn account.

Later, Flippa will ask you to link your account on it to your account on the LinkedIn site for authentication, and through the link, the site will import your photo and some of your personal data from your LinkedIn account, and add it to your account on it.

Fourth Step: Complete the account information and activate it

After the explanation and registration process is completed, Flippa should direct you to your personal account page, which may look like this.

                                                                                                   

As you can see there are still many sections that you need to look at and add their data. The most important sections that you are supposed to start looking at and adding the required information in is the documentation or verificatio section, which is located to the right in the lower rectangle.

Adding the information to this section is necessary to be able to use all the tools and features of the site fully.

The process of verifying your Flippa account includes:

a) Verify Phone Number Verify: Click on Verify phone to go to the Verify phone number confirmation page on the Flippa website.

Confirming your phone number is done by typing the phone number and then pressing the Send Code button, and then enter the code that the site will send to the phone in the space provided for entering the activation code.

Sub-step Add and confirm card: You can also verify your account as a seller on Flippa (optional step) for free by clicking on Became a certified buyer, you only need a bank card with the amount of 5 USD or more.

When you choose to authenticate as a seller, you will go to a page where you will be asked for the card information and agree to withdraw the amount. Do not worry, the amount will be returned to your account within seven days, and this is clearly mentioned by the site on the card data page and before completing the payment.

Verifying your account as a seller on the site increases your credibility in front of potential buyers, and since it is a free and easy step we recommend that you take it.

b) Confirm your Verify Government ID: To confirm your official identity on the Flippa website you need to provide a copy of a government identification document.

You can use any of the following documents to confirm your identity on the site:

• Driving License.
• residence permit.
• Your personal identity card.
• Your passport.

Of course you must use a valid and original document to be accepted on the site, when you click on Verify government ID you will be taken to the photo ID upload page.

Agree to the condition of collecting your personal data, and click Next to complete the step of activating your personal identity.

c) Add and confirm a bank card Verify Credit Card: The bank card confirmation step is the same as the sub-step that we explained in the step of confirming your phone number.

d) Verify LinkedIn account activation: Click on Verify LinkedIn shown in the previous image to go to the LinkedIn account activation page, then go to the bottom of the page and click on Start Verification and follow the steps.

e) Verify your sources of funding Verify Funds: Finally, you must document the source that you will rely on to finance your purchases of sites on the Flippa website.

Click on Verify Funds to be taken to the Funding Sources Documentation page, which shows you how to do this in two ways:

The first method: Dedicated to bank accounts affiliated with banks in the United States of America and Canada. These accounts are instantly authenticated by adding the available bank account balances at the time of the authentication process, and then automatically linking your Philippa account to your bank account.

The second method: To document your funding source is done manually by adding data requested by Flippa, which are:

• Verify your identity data (you do not need to do it again if you did it in the first step of verifying your account on the site).
• Adding bank documents related to your bank account (usually an account statement for transactions made on your bank account within the past six months).

The process of verifying your funding source through this method takes from 3 to 5 working days according to Flippa site policies. It should be noted that this step is not primarily requested by Flippa, but rather by some sellers who own sites to secure sales.

In other words, you can postpone and implement it when needed, or when one of the sellers of the sites you want to buy asks you.

How do you use Flippa?

You can use Flippa as a buyer, seller, or both and we'll explain both methods in the next part of the article.

First: Selling websites through Flippa

You can sell your site for a sum of money by displaying it on Flippa by following these steps:

1. Go to your account on the site and click on Sell Now in the top right.
2. Add your website address and click Continue to go to the next page.
3. Decide what category your site would like or see other options for what you can sell through Flippa.
4. Add data about your site, such as the name of the company to which the site is affiliated, when it was created, where it is located, and so on.
5. Select sources of income (site earnings). You can choose more than one source, or add sources that are not mentioned on the site.
6. Identify the companies and tools you rely on to monetize your site.
7. Connect the profit tools you chose in the previous step to your Flippa account. (Flippa does not support linking with all profit sources, but with some sources such as Google Adsense, for example)
8. Add your site's earnings, expenses, and net profit over a specified period of time (when it was created and up to the current month). You can also add documents, videos and reports that support the validity of these numbers.
9. Add details of your site expenses such as the nature of the expense and its average cost.
10. Determine the items that you will sell in addition to your site or included in the site.
11. Determine the platform on which your site is located, whether it is on Blogger or WordPress, for example, and finally answer some questions.
12. Add links and details of your site's social media accounts if they are among the items that you will sell with your site.
13. Add a short and detailed description of your site. (Adding the short description in particular is a mandatory step and cannot be skipped).

Now that you have initially completed the process of adding your site to Flippa for the purpose of selling it, it is assumed that the site has set an initial price for your site based on the information you added about it.

After this, you must choose the method of selling your site, whether by auction or by setting a fixed price, and whoever wants to buy with it, the transaction will be completed.

After determining the price of your site and the method of selling it, you will have to choose the payment method through which you want to receive the value of the site. Flippa provides two payment methods:

• escrow site.
• PayPal.

As for the Philippa website commission from selling websites, it is available with two plans:

The enhanced plan is $99, one-time payment and provides you with all the site's features.

Standard plan $29 one-time payment and offers only some features of the Enhanced plan.

Important note: Although the Flippa website mentions that the second plan is paid once, its extension is only 3 months, in other words, after the end of the plan period, you will need to subscribe to it again.

This is a mandatory step and cannot be skipped. Add the plan that suits you to your cart by clicking on Add to cart to move to the next step, which is to purchase other additional services, which is an optional step.

Pay for the site plan you chose in the previous step, this is the last step in the process of putting your site up for sale on Flippa.

Second: Buy sites on Flippa

There are three ways in which you can browse the sites available for purchase through the Flippa website:

Use the search feature on the home page of the site, and type the name of the site you are looking for or the category to which it belongs.

Click on Browse and choose the category of sites you want to view specifically by choosing the appropriate category.

View the sites offered for sale on the main page, which are sites that the site recommends to you specifically or sites whose owners announce their sale.

You can press the Watch button to monitor the sites and the changes that take place on them, whether in terms of price or information about them. The sites you monitor appear in a special list that can be accessed from within your account on the site.

As for buying the site you want; Click on View listing to go to its page and view its data. You should see the location data on a new page

There are two options for purchasing websites:

Bid for it by clicking on Place Bid.

Buy the site immediately by clicking on Buy It Now and paying the amount written on the button.

Of course there is the option to contact the seller or Contact Seller to negotiate with the site owner or to find out more information. If you click on Place Bid, you will be taken to the next page to add the amount you will increase by.

Add the amount and click on Place Bid to record the amount and inform the site seller of it. You can access the sites that you have bid on from within your account by clicking on Buying.

Through this section, you will go to a page in which each site you have offered to buy appears through bidding in the Bids section, or submitting an offer to buy at the requested price, and finally Won and contains the sites that sellers have agreed to sell to you.

Please note that when you click on Buy Now, the site may perform one of the following actions:

Your offer is sent to the site owner to view your account and then accept the offer (and then appear in Won in the previous section if the seller accepts your offer).

You go to a page asking you to confirm your financing method due to the request of the site owner or the relatively high price of the site.

You will be taken to a page that directs you to the payment method gateway you have chosen to pay on the Flippa website such as PayPal.

Agree to the terms of the site and click on Pay with PayPal to go to your account on it and complete the payment and purchase process.

Important tips on using the Flippa website for sellers and buyers

First tips for site buyers through Flippa

1. Don't let the ads section fool you

When you visit the Flippa website, a special section will appear that contains a number of sites that are promoted as providing huge profits.

Most of the sites on the page have a high price, as well as the expected profits to be achieved through them. But is this true? Not necessarily, as we explained previously, the Flippa site relies on specific data to calculate the profits of the sites, and the source of this data are the owners of the sites themselves.

There are several steps that require adding profit and cost data manually, and they can even be skipped and herein lies the problem, the system is not 100% accurate. In other words, the data of these sites may not be accurate, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

Conclusion: Treat the purchase of the site as you deal with the purchase of any investment asset. Research, review, and take your time before buying.

2. Review seller data and rating on Flippa

Flippa evaluates registered sellers according to many factors, including:

their performance on the site.

their dealings with clients.

The number of successful operations they have performed.

The value of their sales and activities on the site.

Review seller ratings before completing or even considering a purchase. You can access the site's seller's ratings by browsing at the bottom of the site you want to buy under the section on the site's buy and bid buttons.

The more the seller has good reviews and titles that show his efficiency on the site, such as Super Seller, the better and safer it is to deal with him.

Read also : What is the best time to buy gold

Second, tips for sellers on Flippa

1. Do not deal with an undocumented buyer

I think you have noticed that the process of creating a buyer's account on Flippa is a process that takes some time, and this is due to the site's requirement to document the buyer's account in the most way, in order to ensure the seriousness and honesty of the buyers registered on it.

Undocumented buyer dealing with it may be dangerous and may cause you to lose your money or even waste your time, at the very least the account may be created as an experiment or for a specific purpose such as writing this article.

2. Carefully check the buyer's account

The conditions that Flippa requires to verify buyers' accounts do not always mean that dealing with them is completely safe. Check all the data in the buyer's account before agreeing to sell your site to him.

Electronic payment methods have certain policies in the receipt of funds, these means may allow the completion of the payment process or to hold its value temporarily in your account until the investigation of the source of the funds, or the means through which the payment was made later.

In other words, you may receive the value of your site and then it turns out that the buyer used an illegal or stolen account to pay. In this case the funds will be withdrawn from your account.

3. Check out Flippa's blog and podcast on a daily basis

Flippa's blog contains an excellent number of important articles in the field of buying and selling digital assets such as sites and applications, keep checking the blog, because it will help you understand the depths of this field better.

Unlike the blog, Flippa offers a podcast that interviews people who have bought and sold sites before, the podcast contains valuable information that will help you if you are a beginner in this field. It also introduces you to the future of investing in the field of website trading.

Ways to earn through Flippa

1. Create and sell websites

As you have noticed from our article, you can make good money selling sites on Flippa. Why don't you know this field? You can easily find out which sites are in high demand on the site, create them and then sell them later.

There are several methods that you can follow to create websites and profit from selling them through Flippa:

a) Create your own websites

Do you have software experience in creating websites? Excellent. You can take advantage of this experience to create sites for the purpose of selling them later. This method is relied upon by many programmers and technical experts in the field of creating sites to earn thousands of dollars.

If you do not have programming experience in the field of creating websites; Do not worry, you can easily create websites without having to, there are platforms and sites that enable you to create websites, blogs, and even e-stores within minutes, without the need to have any technical experience.

Read also: How to make money from the spotlight platform in Snapchat in detail

b) Rely on a professional programmer

You can hire a professional programmer you know or hire one through a freelance site. Write your site idea and details and contact the programmer to implement it for you, then sell it again on Flippa after calculating the cost of creating it and determining a profit rate that suits you.

In both of the previous methods, you will have to work on the sites you created for a short period of time. During this period, you should be keen to add content to the site and increase its visitors, and most importantly add means to make profits through it in order to be able to achieve an appropriate margin from selling it

The advantage of creating and selling sites on Flippa is that you will not need to search for buyers yourself, but rather you will display sites on the Flippa site that already have a large number of customers.

2. Buying and developing websites and then reselling them

There are two web development techniques that you can do to increase the value and revenue of your sites.

The first method: website owners with modest or limited technical experience rely on it. In this method, the site is developed in terms of improving its performance and increasing its profits.

This method depends on improving the performance of the site on search engines, increasing the number of visitors and diversifying its sources of profit. Site sellers who follow this approach aim to focus on what helps to increase the profits of the site and raise its market value primarily.

This can be accomplished through several methods such as:

Increase the number of visitors to the site.

Developing the means that the site currently relies on to increase its profits.

Adding new ways to profit through the site that the last was not reliable before.

This method greatly increases the value of the sites, sometimes up to 100%. The disadvantage of this method is that it takes some time and effort to bear fruit, but it is profitable in the end.

The second method of development: It depends on the development of the site from a technical point of view. In this method, site owners radically develop the sites they have purchased, such as changing the site's design visually, software, or both.

Changing the website design is a process that often takes less time than the processes that depend on the first method of website development, however, developing and changing the website design does not result in a huge increase in the value of the website as it affects profits at a small rate.

Site owners who rely on the second method hope that their modifications will be an aid to the main factor, which is profits. In other words, sellers here rely on the buyer looking first for a profitable site and secondly for a profitable site with an attractive design.

Some site owners who adopt this method are satisfied with changing the design of the site only. On the other hand, there are a good number of site owners who combine this method with the previous method.

The combination of the two methods results in a highly developed site, which maximizes its value, which may eventually exceed its value in each method separately.

3. Buying profitable websites from Flippa and investing in them as a profitable project

Think of this method as someone who buys a project that works, and buys it without intending to sell it, but the goal here is to rely on this project to obtain Good monthly income.

Of course, you do not have to be satisfied with buying a site and waiting for its profits every month, but like any smart project owner, you must develop this site in order to generate more profits for you.

The development methods here may be:

Develop the design and programming of the site to improve its performance.

Work to attract more visitors to it, whether free or paid.

Finding innovative ways to increase current profits.

Find new ways to generate profits from the site.

Also Read: How to make money from Snapchat (everything you need in one place)

Conclusion

In this article, we explained to you the advantages of Flippa in the field of buying and selling websites, this area is considered one of the emerging investment areas, which is characterized by ease of implementation and a high rate of profits.

Have you visited Flippa before? Are you thinking of buying a site or selling your site? Share with us in the comments your experience of Flippa and your opinion of it.