Free, in full, no email
This is what $699 buys.
A whole Deal Read on a real listing, published exactly as the buyer got it. We have no track record you can look up, so the only credibility that is worth anything here is showing you the work.
Listing 4471. Home furnishings, sold online, shipped by the suppliers. Listed at $325,000. A real review, reviewed September 2026.
The business, the broker, the city, the people and the software it runs on are all removed, and the descriptive details are rounded, so that nobody can work out which listing this was. Every figure the argument actually rests on is exactly as it was. Rounding those would leave you reading something that proves nothing, which would defeat the point of publishing it.
- Sales of about $800,000 a year
- The seller says it earns $162,125
- No stock held, no lease, run from a house, and it could move anywhere
- Three employees
- A store around fifteen years old, roughly 12,000 products, more than fifty suppliers
- Reason for selling: retirement
The verdict
Worth pursuing, but not at this price and not on these terms.
38out of 100Band: Restructure
Two of the six tests below score low only because nobody has asked the question yet. Both can be settled by email in three days at no cost. That is a completely different fact from a test the business fails, and it is why this is a restructure rather than a no.
Six figures
Two of them are corrections. Those are the two that decide it.
Asking price$325,000From the listing
What the seller says it earns$162,125From the listing
What it earns with you doing the work$130,301Corrected
What it earns once somebody is paid to run it$35,301Corrected
Cash needed on closing day$112,000Calculated
Price against corrected earnings2.49 timesCalculated
The six things that decide it
Each one is weighted, and the weights are published. The total is the weighted sum and it reconciles to the rows: 5.5 plus 9.0 plus 4.5 plus 7.2 plus 7.8 plus 4.0 is 38.
| What it tests | Weight | Score | State |
|---|---|---|---|
| The earnings survive the seller leavingFour of the seven decisions that bring in money have nobody behind them the day after close. | 25% | 22 | Fails |
| The earnings are realThree figures had to be restated, and two of the seller's own documents disagree with each other. | 20% | 45 | Open |
| The right to operate transfersNothing anywhere states whether the store, the domain, the card processor and the name belong to the company or to a person. | 15% | 30 | Nobody asked |
| A bank will lend, and get paid backIt covers the loan only if the buyer personally does both of the two jobs that are leaving. There is nothing to secure the loan against. | 15% | 48 | Open |
| The sales will keep comingGrowing, but almost nobody buys twice and six in ten visitors arrive through a search engine. | 15% | 52 | Open |
| No debts follow the buyerTwo company names are in use and nobody has tested where sales tax is owed. | 10% | 40 | Nobody asked |
Three limits we publish rather than apply quietly
- A test nobody has checked scores no higher than 40. An absence is not a pass.
- Any live deal-ending risk caps the whole score at 49, whatever the six say.
- A test at 'nobody asked' blocks the proceed band however high the total. A deal cannot go ahead on questions nobody sent.
What it really earns
| What the seller presented, trailing twelve months | $162,125 | From the documents |
|---|---|---|
| Costs the owner said a buyer would not have (There were none to find) | None | Not stated |
| Insurance and professional fees, missing | -$10,000 | Our estimate |
| Employer payroll tax, missing | -$3,824 | Calculated |
| The platform the affiliates run on, missing | -$12,000 | Our estimate |
| Email and apps, missing | -$6,000 | Our estimate |
| What it earns with you doing the work | $130,301 | Calculated |
| A manager to do the owner's job instead | -$95,000 | Our estimate |
| What it earns once somebody is paid to run it | $35,301 | Calculated |
Every line subtracts. No owner salary appears in any period and no owner expense of any kind appears in a business run out of a house, which means the figure the seller presented already behaves like what an owner takes home rather than what the business earns. The question to put to her is what she has actually been living on. That gap, $130,301 against $35,301, is the whole argument, and no seller worksheet contains it.
Who makes the decisions that bring in money
Every small business depends on its owner. Counting it turns that into something you can negotiate against.
| The decision | Who the memorandum names | Now | After close |
|---|---|---|---|
| Set the retail prices | The owner | 1 | 0 |
| Choose what to sell, add or drop a supplier | The owner | 1 | 0 |
| Approve a large expenditure | The owner, no limit stated | 1 | 0 |
| Run the marketing and buy the traffic | A director, leaving | 1 | 0 |
| Lay out and publish the storefront | The director leaving, plus one staying | 2 | 1 |
| Handle a claim, a damage or a return | Two staff, both expected to stay | 2 | 2 |
| Invoice, reconcile and pay | One member of staff, expected to stay | 1 | 1 |
| Total | 9 | 4 |
Nine people behind the decisions today. Four after close. This records what the seller says, not what the records show, and descriptions are always more generous than logs. One measurement settles it: the distinct people who have actually performed each of these over the last thirty six months, taken from the store's staff permission history, the accounting system's user trail, and the project system. The memorandum names all three of those systems on page eleven, so asking for them is not an imposition.
The owner decides what the business sells and what it charges. The director decides how it is presented and how customers are found. Between them that is every decision that determines revenue. What is left after close is customer service and bookkeeping, done by two people who have worked for this family for two decades and for more than ten years, and who have not been asked whether they intend to stay. You are not buying a business that runs without you. You are buying a job that comes with a customer list.
Whether a bank gets paid back
| At $275,000 | At the asking price | |
|---|---|---|
| The loan, at ninety percent | $247,500 | $292,500 |
| What the loan costs a year | $39,249 | $46,385 |
| Times over it covers the loan, if you pay yourself $60,000 | 1.79 | 1.52 |
| The most you could pay yourself and still cover it | $81,240 | $72,320 |
| The drop in sales that breaks it | 7.3 percent | 4.2 percent |
Both columns assume you personally do the owner's job and the departing director's job. Pay anybody to do either half and it covers the loan 0.76 times, which no lender will fund.
What closing day costs
| Your own money into the deal | $27,500 |
|---|---|
| Lender and closing fees | $11,000 |
| Lawyer and checking the numbers | $15,000 |
| Cash the business needs to run | $25,000 |
| Your household reserve | $33,500 |
| Total on closing day | $112,000 |
Four times the money the buyer put into the deal. That ratio is the single most common reason a first purchase falls over at the table. Run your own version, free.
What could go wrong, worst first
| How bad | What it is | What it costs if true |
|---|---|---|
| Critical | 2025 shows no marketing cost at all, and the seller's own monthly workbook shows $34,925 for six months of it | $57,000 a year |
| Critical | The cost of goods does not appear to be recorded in the month the sales belong to | $60,000 a year |
| High | It covers the loan 0.76 times the moment you hire anybody | The deal |
| High | The person who runs marketing appears in no cost line anywhere, and is leaving | $85,000 to $95,000 |
| High | Four of the seven decisions that bring in money have nobody behind them | The handover |
| High | Six in ten visitors arrive through a search engine nobody controls | Up to 60 percent of demand |
| Medium | Shipping loses $39,026 a year, on a pricing table the memorandum lists as an advantage | $39,000 |
| Medium | One product category lost fifteen points of margin on flat sales, unexplained | $19,000 |
| Medium | roughly 43,000 email addresses produce 6.7 percent of revenue | The growth case |
| Medium | No balance sheet was provided | Cannot be financed |
| Medium | Two company names are in use | What actually transfers |
The two most serious problems both cost nothing to investigate.
Five questions to ask before spending a dollar
Each one names who answers it, how long they get, and what it can do.
1. Are the store, the domain, the card processor and the name owned by the company, or by a person?
Ask The broker. 3 days. Can end it.
2. Why does 2025 show no marketing cost, when your own monthly workbook shows $34,925 for half of it?
Ask The seller, through the broker. 5 days. Worth $57,000 a year either way.
3. Is the person who runs marketing leaving because you decided it, or because she wants to?
Ask The seller. 5 days. Worth $95,000 a year, and it is the biggest number on the page.
4. Send the federal tax returns and the balance sheets for the last three years.
Ask The seller. 7 days. Can end it if they do not agree with the statements.
5. Will a lender fund this with nothing to secure it against?
Ask A lender, before you spend anything. 10 days. Free, and it decides whether any of this matters.
The order to do it in, cheapest first
| Step | Cost | Days | Stop if |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Email the broker | Free | 3 | Any account or name is held by a person and cannot be moved |
| 2. Email the seller | Free | 5 | Neither remaining employee will discuss staying |
| 3. Ask for the tax returns and balance sheets | Free to ask | 7 | The returns do not agree with the statements |
| 4. Ask for the store's staff permission history | Free | 7 | They will not send it |
| 5. Ask a lender whether they would fund it | Free | 10 | They will not, or they want a valuation you have not budgeted for |
| 6. An accountant, scoped to the two problems above and nothing else | $6,000 to $9,000 | 21 | Do not start this until the five above are clear |
| 7. A lawyer on the company, what transfers, and sales tax | $4,000 to $7,000 | 14 | Run it alongside the accountant |
The first five are free and take ten days between them. Two of them can end the deal in three.
Why not walk away
Building this from nothing would cost somewhere between $245,000 and $475,000: the email list, the catalog of roughly 12,000 products, the store itself, and a year of traffic. The asking price sits inside that range. This is a reasonable price for what is there. It is not a bargain, and it is the strongest thing anybody can say in the seller's favor. There is also a real business underneath: sales are up 4.9 percent on the same six months last year, and the product margin has held flat within one point for four straight years, which is rarer than it sounds.
A review that only prosecutes gets ignored, and it should be. This section is required in every one we write.
What we could not see
No balance sheet, no tax returns and no payroll records were provided, so nothing here has been checked against a filed document. Four years of accounts were prepared three different ways, and they have been put on one basis before being compared, which is our restatement rather than the seller's. The manager salary, the missing insurance line, the platform cost and the app cost are our estimates and are labeled as such. One thing would change this verdict on its own: February 2026 shows a negative gross profit and December shows the cost of goods at 66.6 percent of sales, which suggests the cost of goods is simply being recorded in the wrong month. If that is a bookkeeping problem, the deal holds at a lower price. If that margin is real, no price works with a loan on it. That question costs nothing to ask and it is the first one we would send.
What happened next
Two weeks later four of the five questions came back. The director was not leaving by choice and would consider staying, which removes the $95,000 and takes what it earns with a manager paid from 0.76 times the loan to 2.81. The 2025 marketing was real and had been left out of the accounts, so that year earned $170,800 rather than $228,246, while the trailing twelve months are unaffected. Both remaining staff turned out to be part time. Balance sheets exist, and costs are booked on the invoice date, so the milder of the two downside cases applies. The score went from 38 to 67 and the band from restructure to conditions. Five emails, no money spent, and a deal that looked dead was worth doing at the right price with the right conditions attached.
That is the whole thing.
No sign-up, no email box on this page, and nothing held back for a paid version. If it is useful, send us the listing you cannot stop thinking about. If you have not picked one yet, the fit check is the better place to start and it is free.