🔥Fix the Margins, Double the Profits💸

What we'll cover this week

• Dream Business - Snatch it before peak season

• Don’t Buy - Business model doomed to fail

• Profit Multiples - How to know if the price is too high or justified

This Week’s Pro Tip

Paid Traffic Is Hard to Scale

I’ve been running PPC campaigns for nearly 15 years, and even now, some campaigns are a nightmare to make profitable—especially if you’re only tracking first-time conversions.

There was a time when you could throw up some ads and turn a profit on the first click. That era’s over, at least with the current crop of PPC channels.

These days, paid traffic works best in two scenarios:

• As a growth booster to validate product-market fit fast

• As a secondary channel supporting your organic, social, and email efforts

It’s not dead, but it’s no longer the hero. If you treat PPC as your entire strategy, you’ll burn money and blame the algorithm.

That said, I think we’re heading toward a new golden age of paid traffic, but more on that in a few months.

Short Disclaimer

Online Acquisition Weekly is for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial, investment, or legal advice. We do not endorse or guarantee the accuracy of third-party listings. Always conduct your own due diligence or consult a professional before making any investment decisions.

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This Week’s Dream Business

If you’re a decent negotiator, this one might return your investment faster than you think.

Camp Lolo (listing on Flippa) is a dropshipping business focused on outdoor products. And since we’re approaching peak season, you could step in and catch the wave before it dips again next year.

TL;DR

• Dropshipping store in the outdoor/camping niche

• High-ticket items ($190 to $2,000+) = strong AOV potential

• Only 8% profit margin—needs serious cleanup

• Traffic is on the low end for this niche (~180K/year)

• Price is absurd at $399K (3.8x), should be closer to $200K

• If you fix the margins and dial in the funnel, this could scale hard

Why This Listing Stands Out

The outdoor and camping niche attracts customers who are ready to spend. Price-insensitive, emotionally engaged, and willing to drop serious cash on quality gear. That’s about as good as it gets.

The traffic is fairly stable outside of a one-time spike in December 2024, which likely came from a PPC test.

And the real upside? Their top 10 products:

• 8 of them are priced above $190

• Some are over $2,000

That kind of AOV makes experimenting with paid ads way easier.

To top it off, there's a positive Reddit thread about them, which is a great trust signal.

What Could Be Improved

Profit Margins

The business earns six figures monthly but only makes around $10K in profit. That’s 8%. Way too thin for comfort.

Worse, the P&L is basically useless. There are no breakdowns, categories, or a clear picture of where the money is going.

If you can push margins from 8% to 16%, you cut your payback time in half. Just for context: my dropshipping stores ran between 50 - 60% margins. That should tell you how much potential is being left on the table.

Traffic & Marketing

Current traffic is around 180K visits per year. In this niche, that’s underwhelming.

I’d put immediate effort into either Instagram (likely better for revenue) or TikTok. Both are perfect for content in a visual niche - gear, adventures, and setups.

Hire a great social media manager ($1–2K/month), drive traffic to content like “Best Camping Trips in Oregon,” and push newsletter signups. Speaking of which, every customer should be auto-subscribed. You’ll have higher unsubscribe rates than normal (~1% is normal), but you’ll also gain a lot of repeat buyers.

Also, expand the catalog. Every decent-quality dropshippable outdoor product should be listed. My own stores ranked for competitive search terms because we had over 1,100 SKUs. On-page SEO is easier when you’ve got a ton of product pages.

What to Watch Out For

• Social media numbers don’t match what’s claimed in the listing. That needs to be cleared up before anything else.

• The seller isn’t verified on Flippa. Ask for a LinkedIn profile and hop on a video call.

• Who are the suppliers? Are those relationships solid? Are they U.S.-based? If most products come from AliExpress, skip it.

  • Nobody wants to wait 4 weeks for a $3,000 tent and then get hit with customs fees.

• If the biggest supplier is just an email address without a personal connection, that’s a problem. Check how they handle supplier relationship management.

Due Diligence Checklist

Before making an offer, verify everything:

• Seller identity – Flippa profile, LinkedIn, video call

• Cleaned-up P&L – full breakdown of costs and profit leakages

• Social media verification – confirm followers, engagement, and traffic sources

• Stripe & PayPal – verify last 30 days of transactions on video

• Expense review – make sure nothing’s buried in the numbers

• Supplier reliability – who are they, where are they, how do you talk to them

• Traffic quality – Google Search Console access

What’s a Fair Price?

Right now, they’re asking for $399,999 at a 3.8x profit multiple. That’s delusional.

Comparable listings that sold recently were closer to 2.0x. That puts a fair price at around $220,000.

I’d start the negotiation at $200,000, reference similar sales, but only after you’ve already gone through the due diligence process with the seller. At that point, they’ll know you’re serious - and if you walk, they lose all the time they just spent trying to close you.

Use that leverage.

Don’t Buy and Why

This is where we break down listings that aren’t worth your money—but still offer valuable lessons about buying online businesses.

Puckermob.com

Even if traffic and revenue had remained stable, this business model would still be a dead end.

They rely on “user-generated content,” which here means:

• Anyone can submit an article

• Include a backlink to their site

• Hit publish and move on

In other words, it’s a glorified backlink farm. Search engines are not fans of that.

The content spans from “how to plan a kid’s birthday party” to “house siding replacement tutorials,” so there's no real theme, structure, or authority.

It seems that Google has already penalized them, and their traffic and revenue are dropping. This is definitely not a long-term play.

Determining Multiples

Valuing online businesses isn’t like valuing traditional ones - multiples vary wildly depending on the niche and how the business is run.

SaaS businesses typically get the highest multiples. Dropshipping stores, especially those tied to AliExpress, land near the bottom. Everything else falls somewhere in between.

What drives your multiple up (or down)?

• Consistent profit

• Growing traffic or revenue

• Age (avoid buying/selling sites under 2 years old)

• Professional setup and operations

• Level of competition in the niche

• Uniqueness of the product or offer

• Inventory model (people still love dropshipping)

• Ratio of fixed to variable costs

If you're trying to get a feel for what's fair, Flippa publishes benchmarking data that’s worth reviewing:

It shows what top-performing listings are selling for (let’s assume yours will be lower since you might not be in the top-performing bracket).

Once your listing goes live, Flippa will also show comparison data against similar listings. If you're the seller and your price is way above the rest, it's a red flag for buyers. If you're the buyer, you've just been handed a negotiation lever.

A good gut check: Is the business easy to run, and are profits predictable?

If yes, then a higher multiple makes sense. If not, it better be cheap.

Final Words

That’s it for this week. This week’s dream business can be a real passion project for the right person. I could see how this easily turns into a massive brand and makes much more profit than it does now.

Got something on your mind? Hit reply and let me know—I’ll get back to you ASAP.

See you next time,
Tim