Investors Club / Empire Flippers / others

April 06, 2021

by a searcher from Binghamton University, State University of New York - School of Management in New York, NY, USA

Does anyone have any experience acquiring a business on either of these platforms or others like them? Does a membership subscription offer additional value? Have you used their due diligence services to evaluate the opportunities? Recommendations/advice...

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Reply by a searcher
from Babson College in Natick, MA, USA

I am using Empire Flippers and I have a deal under LOI. I would say that "it depends" on the type of business you are trying to buy on EF, I'm interested in the e-commerce space. The due diligence they provide is fairly basic and similar to what you would see from Quiet Light - they prepare the P&L and verify revenue numbers along with a few of the cost items. However, these items are pretty easy to verify yourself once you get into an LOI; for example, it's easy to verify revenue for an e-commerce site by having a seller add you as an admin/viewer on Shopify or Amazon to confirm revenue numbers.

EF has great customer service and while the seller pays all the broker fees, those fees are quite large###-###-#### % depending on the size of the deal) and consequently they are a little bit priced in - you will see higher multiples on EF as compared to Quiet Light or other brokers. This reason is that they see lots of volume from the big guys - Thrasio and others regularly buy the Amazon FBA businesses and lock up those deals inside of a week. Generally speaking, if you see an Amazon FBA business on EF, it's probably because they have passed on it for a number of reasons.

What I do like about EF is once you jump through all the hoops of being "verified" you can access detailed info on all the listings, as opposed to the approach on Quiet Light where you would need to manually request for the CIM on each deal. EF uses "VIP unlocks" but all that does is force you to communicate with a human broker - once you unlock 10 listings and decide you aren't interested in them, you just ask the broker for 10 more "unlocks" and you can view more.

If you want more info, just send me a message.

Reply by a searcher
from University of Illinois at Urbana in Rockford, IL, USA

Michael - I am on my early stages with Empire Flippers. I have a standard account with them and a marketplace filter setup to send me their e-commerce listings. I spoke to their representatives to help me unlock business I am interested in. They have strict verification process it seems where you will need to upload an identification and proof of funds before unlocking any deals. I understood most of their deals are for non-SBA loan acquisitions. Given that I plan to leverage a SBA Loan, I worked with their SBA Loan Officer (Ameris Bank) to get pre-qualified. I recently received a VIP Code that will allow me unlocking/viewing deals that are within my SBA pre-qualification amount, but their SBA eligible listings are limited. From what I have heard, within the online business broker industry, Empire Flippers is a well known on-line business broker, and growing on their transaction sizes. Other on-line business brokers I track are Quiet Light, FE International and Website Closers. I like the business prospectus Quiet Light and FE International prepare, they are very comprehensive. Website Closers has been a hit & miss thus far and their price multiples high. I have not used Empire Flippers due diligence services, but for online business, I have hear good things on Centurica Due Diligence Services. Hope this helps.

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