Selling Vaporizer E-commerce Website www.vapetropolis.ca / www.vapetropolis.comIntroductionHi guys, we are selling an E-commerce website that sells vaporizers and related accessories. The vaporizer and e-cigarette industry is one of the fastest growing industries. Excellent alternative to mining. Currently we use a 3rd party warehouse for fulfillment but we recommend drop shipping which is already set up.
Some quick site facts:• 1400 unique visitors avg per month.
http://imgur.com/jwxeckr• Revenue to date is just over $40k. This is including revenue from in person sales and through coingig.com
• Has generated over 60 Bitcoins to date.
About VapetropolisVapetropolis.ca opened its doors for business in late November 2012. The business began as a vaporizer web outlet selling exclusively to Canadian consumers, but quickly opened its doors to the U.S., and then the U.K., when market opportunities abroad became apparent. A new market was opened up for the business in mid-April when the website became the first vaporizer store in the world to accept Bitcoin. To date, Bitcoin sales have risen in a promisingly steady manner, both in gross and in percentage of total sales. The business is currently in the process of opening its doors to the worldwide market through implementing worldwide shipping in the checkout process.
Vapetropolis.com offers a range of vaporizers and accessories to the worldwide market. Product offerings comprise a carefully cultivated range of vaporizers from mid-low to the very high end of the market. A wide range of accessories are also offered, including some branded items.
Fulfillment is executed through a 3rd-party warehouse located in Toronto, Canada, and recently through dropshipping relationships with both GotVape.com and Australianvaporizers.com.au.
Why we are sellingMe and my partner have moved on to promising new projects (one of them being bitcoin related). This is the site that has taken us off the ground and given us the ability to start more ambitious projects.
What You Get• Website - Wordpress integrated into Magento (Front Page = wordpress for easy seo, rest of site is magento)
• Domain name transfers - vapetropolis.ca, vapetropolis.com, vapetropolis.info
• All site files and artwork (product images, youtube video reviews)
• Inventory (Roughly $10,000) -
• Dropshipping Relationships with GotVape, Australian Vaporizers
• Relationship with VaporizerBlog, use of their videos
• All Social Media Accounts. (facebook, twitter, youtube)
• Established Localbitcoins.com account
• Coingig.com account
Financial DetailsWebsite Revenue:
http://imgur.com/ergddXSBitcoin sales from April to January:
http://imgur.com/dco7L6Lhttp://imgur.com/fzgjv6fhttp://imgur.com/6AZhm6Ihttp://imgur.com/MthOnLPhttp://imgur.com/viAldZGhttp://imgur.com/vI1fjjS*note we used the mtgox payment gateway then switched to bitpay in April. Coingig and in person sales not included.
ExpensesThe website is hosted on xpcwebhosting.com on a monthly 19.95 Silver Plan. Warehouse costs roughly 200-500 a month based on sell volume(This is our biggest expense and we recommend dropshipping to cut costs).
MarketingOur current marketing is done through retargeting on adroll.com and costs about $10/month based on traffic.
Known Issues• Have taken pre-orders for a product that we are currently waiting to receive.(Prefer buyer to be from U.S to resolve this situation quicker.)
• Paypal disables account saying that they do not allow the sale of "e-cigs and vaporizers" (we believe it is because we accept bitcoin).
• Google suspends adwords account saying that they do not allow e-cig and vaporizer advertisements.
Final Thoughts and Recommendations for BuyerAs you can see the site has generated a healthy amount of revenue in its first year and is well positioned in the bitcoin community. The Bitcoin community is very receptive to vaporizers than most communities as their ideals are similar. We recommend the buyer to market the website within the bitcoin community as much as possible as worldwide shipping will help generate more in sales. Unfortunately we no longer can use paypal as a payment gateway and we recommend the buyer to immediately set up another payment gateway such as authorize.net. Paid advertising may be tricky as many advertisers and ad networks will not allow the advertising of "e-cigs and vaporizers" . Despite these setbacks much can be done to increase revenue and optimize profits. The warehouse is our biggest expense and can be cut out immediately through dropshipping. Since we do not want to sell the website without the inventory we currently hold, we suggest the buyer to store inventory at home and fulfill orders until they run out. Any orders that aren't in stock can be dropshipped. This would be ideal, in our opinion to transition to dropshipping.
Other considerations:• Can adjust product offerings easily.
• Currently we use the starter plan on Bitpay which has a 1% transaction fee and is free monthly. The professional plan is 0% transaction fee and costs $30 a month. This could be ideal to lock in more bitcoins if you believe they will continue to appreciate.
• Start an affiliate program.
• Continue to post videos on the youtube channel.
Bonus: • We've paid to implement Worldwide shipping (currently we only ship to US, Canada, and UK) as we've received numerous requests.
• $1000 Store Credit from our main supplier
• 30 day e-mail and phone support.
Bidding TermsSerious bidders only! Please make sure you have available funds before making bid.
This auction has a hidden reserve
Minimum Bid increment is 0.5 Bitcoins.
Don't Bid if you have doubts, contact us first.
Auction will end on Sunday, January 19, 2014 at 4pm Eastern Time.
