Seeking E-Commerce Acquisition Advice
March 19, 2025
by a searcher from Carnegie Mellon University in Livingston, NJ 07039, USA
Seeking E-Commerce Acquisition Advice
I’m actively exploring the acquisition of an e-commerce business and would love to connect with individuals who have successfully acquired or scaled an e-commerce company. The business I’m evaluating has a strong brand presence, significant repeat customer base and operates on a just-in-time inventory model. It’s a well-established company.
If you’ve successfully navigated an e-commerce acquisition — particularly one involving consumer goods or high-ticket items — I’d be grateful for your insights. Specifically, I’m curious about:
• Key challenges in transitioning ownership while maintaining customer trust.
• Best practices for enhancing digital marketing strategies (PPC, SEO, social media).
• Any pitfalls to avoid or due diligence advice during the acquisition and transition process.
Would love to hear from those who’ve been through it.
Any advice or connections would be greatly appreciated!
from Winston in Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA
PAID SEARCH
1.) Ensure you retain the ad accounts, pixel and conversion tracking data for all advertising platforms (Google, Facebook, Pinterest, Amazon)
2.) Do not touch existing campaigns and instead setup new ones to A/B test against the control
SEO
1.) Perform a backlink audit to identify toxic links or risks of ranking drops after purchase. Some people pump and dump sites using short term blackhat SEO strategies. Outlining an array of nefarious techniques to accomplish this would be a book by itself :)
2.) Maintain consistent site structure and URL redirects to avoid SEO losses post-migration.
HOSTING & EMAIL SERVERS
1.) Make sure you transfer rights to all hosting and email servers, CRM’s, ESP’s etc
2.) Check webhost to ensure backup snapshots are in place and download the latest and oldest snapshots
3.) Get all database access info because it’s completely separate from any other access info you need the database name and passwords. This is the most common mistake I’ve seen over the years
GRAPHICS
1.) You want to request layered .PSD source files for all custom graphics, banner ads etc
AD ACCOUNT DOMAIN LEVEL BAN CHECKS
1.) Setup test ad accounts on platforms not being advertised on to ensure the domain has not already been banned
There’s ALOT more but feel free to reach out anytime
from University of Virginia in Los Angeles, CA, USA
- If you are fulfilling in the JIT manner, research how reliable the supply chain is. Especially in the current situation with tariffs affecting international supply chains, you need to assess supply risks and mitigation strategies.
- You need a good sales tax advisor for e-commerce. Separately, you need to make sure you don't inherit an unanticipated tax liability during the acquisition. Shameless plugin, we at Sales Tax Rx can help with both matters.
- If the business has more than one sales channel, it is important to have an integrated, real-time inventory management system that manages all Points of Sale. Make sure you understand their tech stack.
- Make sure you know the personnel needs: who manages the e-commerce platform, who manages social media, who has access to data and how you will safeguard access and retain the personnel. I came in to turn around a business last year, found that when they fired a key employee on the spot, they did not know that he was the only person with access to several applications, and surprise surprise, he never used his corporate email to log in those apps, so they were unable to recover access. But I digress.
There is a lot to review depending on the specifics of your target business and how far you are into the acquisition.