The biggest change in selling an ecommerce business is that the frenzy is over. Buyers are now looking for stability over pure top-line growth. For a few years, money was cheap and ecommerce was booming, so acquirers were buying companies at high multiples, sometimes overlooking messy financials or founder-dependent operations. That has changed. Today, buyers are more risk-averse and the standards are much higher.
This shift means that what worked before, like highlighting a huge but temporary spike in revenue, no longer holds the same weight. Nate Lind made the point on eCommerce MasterPlan that you have to be realistic about whether it's truly a seller's market for your specific business. Acquirers are doing much deeper due diligence. On Ecommerce Conversations, business broker Mike Handelsman explained that buyers are digging into the sustainability of customer acquisition, supply chain reliability, and the P&L. Any skeletons in the closet will be found, so it’s better to address them long before you decide to sell.
The most important thing you can do now is build what Michal Oron, on Ecommerce Coffee Break, calls a
