What you are buying
E-commerce businesses for sale on RevenueBug include online stores, digital product shops, and commerce tools. With a physical-goods store, the buyer acquires much more than software: a storefront and domain, product listings and photography, supplier and manufacturer relationships, inventory or a dropshipping arrangement, a fulfillment setup, email and social audiences, and a payment configuration. Many of those assets are relationships that cannot be assigned with a signature, so diligence on suppliers and fulfillment matters as much as the revenue graph.
Store platforms handle ownership changes differently, so confirm the process with the platform before signing. Shopify, for example, lets a store owner transfer ownership from the admin settings, but its partner documentation notes that stores with active Shopify Payments, Balance, Credit, or Capital cannot be transferred from a partner account, which is a reminder that payment and financing products often need to be closed or re-applied for by the new owner. Operational obligations transfer in practice too: the FTC's Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule requires a reasonable basis for any shipping time a store advertises, a 30-day default when no time is stated, and delay notices or prompt refunds when shipments slip, and the FTC says the seller stays responsible even when a drop-shipper or fulfillment house does the shipping.
What to check before making an offer
Verify supplier relationships directly
Ask to speak with the main suppliers or manufacturers before closing and confirm they will work with a new owner on the same terms. Get written pricing, minimum order quantities, and lead times. A store whose margin depends on an informal deal with one supplier is fragile.
Rebuild margin per order
Calculate contribution margin per order after product cost, shipping, packaging, payment fees, returns, and advertising. Revenue figures are shown before fees and costs, and physical-goods margins can be thin. Look at margin by product, since a few SKUs often carry the business.
Check inventory and how it is priced
Agree how inventory will be counted and valued at closing, and whether it is included in the price or paid separately. Ask for aging reports to spot slow-moving stock. Dropshipping stores avoid inventory but carry supplier reliability risk instead.
Review fulfillment performance and complaints
Request shipping times, delay rates, return rates, and chargeback history for the last year. The FTC holds the seller responsible for advertised shipping times even when a third party fulfills orders. Read customer reviews for late-delivery and quality complaints.
Map traffic and marketplace dependence
Ask for traffic and revenue by channel: organic search, paid ads, social, email, and marketplaces. Heavy reliance on a single ad account or marketplace listing is a transfer risk, because accounts and seller ratings are not always transferable.
How these businesses are valued
E-commerce businesses are usually priced on owner earnings rather than revenue, because physical-goods revenue carries product, shipping, and advertising costs that software revenue does not. The SBA notes that a valuation should account for intangible assets such as brand presence, intellectual property, and customer information alongside tangible items; for a store, inventory is the main tangible asset and should be counted and valued separately from the operating business.
Seasonality can distort a 30-day window more in commerce than in most categories. A trailing figure from a holiday month can be far above the annual average, and a figure from a quiet month can understate the business. Ask for at least twelve months of order and margin data, normalize advertising spend to a level you would sustain, and price supplier concentration and fulfillment risk explicitly. RevenueBug does not appraise stores or value inventory.
Model a range with the SaaS valuation calculator, then work through the buyer due diligence checklist.