Buying an eCommerce Store? Get an Independent View Before You Bid.

An eCommerce listing is the seller's presentation of the store. Independent due diligence tests that presentation before capital is committed: whether the contribution margin holds once product, shipping, fees, and ad spend are counted, whether the revenue reflects a brand or a media-buying operation with inventory, and what price range the store's own numbers support. Dealytix delivers that analysis as a scored, expert-reviewed PDF within 48 hours, from $149, working from the store URL, the listing, and whatever material the seller has shared. Shopify, WooCommerce, and custom storefronts are all covered.

eCommerce stores are typically valued on a multiple of seller's discretionary earnings, commonly in the 2–4× range. Where a specific store lands inside that range is the entire negotiation, and the listing alone rarely settles it. This guide sets out what a listing tends to leave open, which claims determine the price, and where an independent report fits in the process.

What a listing typically shows, and what it leaves open

A well-prepared store listing shows trailing revenue, a profit figure, product photography, and a growth narrative. The questions a buyer actually needs answered sit one layer deeper, and these are where listings tend to leave the most uncertainty:

• •Does the stated profit survive the full cost base: product, shipping, platform fees, refunds, chargebacks, and the real ad spend?
• •Is the topline earned demand, or is it bought month by month through advertising that transfers to the new owner as a cost?
• •Do customers come back? A store without repeat buyers behaves like a media plan rather than a brand.
• •How concentrated is the revenue by SKU, and what happens if the hero product meets a new competitor or a stockout?
• •Do the supplier relationships exist in writing: pricing, lead times, molds, and do they transfer with the asset?

Each of these is answerable. The question is whether it is answered before the offer or discovered after closing.

The claims that determine price

The marketing efficiency behind the revenue. A single ROAS screenshot and a monthly blended marketing-efficiency trend tell two different stories. Revenue rising while ad spend climbs faster is topline bought with margin, and deteriorating blended efficiency reads as a countdown rather than a detail. The paid-versus-organic revenue mix and the owned-audience share reachable by email and SMS show how much demand exists beyond the ad budget.

The customer economics. Cohort repeat-purchase rates separate a brand from a media-buying operation. A listing that quotes customer counts without returning-customer behavior leaves the most valuable question open: whether the store keeps the customers it pays to acquire. Refund, chargeback, and discounting patterns belong in the same examination, because each one quietly reprices the stated margin.

The supply chain behind the catalog. A single supplier on a handshake is a relationship, and a relationship is difficult to buy. What exists in writing, pricing, lead times, tooling ownership, determines what actually transfers at closing, and tariff and sourcing exposure sits directly behind the margin assumption.

A Dealytix report approaches these claims through evidence grading: every input carries a grade reflecting who stands behind it, from seller-asserted listing claims to data read at the source under seller-authorized, view-only access. A claim that cannot be verified is scored as exactly that, and the report states the source of every data point.

What a Dealytix report covers

The report is structured around what buyers consistently find most useful, ordered by the decisions they are trying to make:

• •An independent valuation range, conservative to optimistic, calculated from the store's own performance data, with a specific walk-away price. A reference point that is independent of the asking price.
• •The Dealytix Score: a letter grade from A to D, built from five dimensions scored identically on every deal, so a store can be compared against your other opportunities.
• •A severity-ranked register of the material risks the analysis surfaces, with what each one does to the price.
• •Ten priority questions to put to the seller, each tied to a finding, with why it matters in the negotiation.
• •A 90-day operator's plan calibrated to this deal's specific weaknesses.

The report is designed to inform your decision, not to confirm one you have already made. It is delivered as a structured PDF, reviewed by an expert before delivery, within 48 hours.

What makes Dealytix different

Independent diligence has historically been a high-touch service: relationship-driven, slowly delivered, custom-priced. Dealytix engineers that process into a standardized product.

An eCommerce acquisition is a significant financial decision, and the diligence window is often short. The report is built to fit inside it: independent analysis delivered within 48 hours, before you bid, before you offer, before you sign. See how it works at dealytix.com/ecommerce.

Common questions

Buying an online store? Get the independent view first.

Send us the listing URL. A scored verdict, a defensible price, and the questions that force the truth, in your inbox within 48 hours.

Independent · No seller access required to start · 48-hour delivery · Not financial advice