Selling an Ecommerce Business Without a Broker
Broker commission at this size is typically 8% to 15%. On a £400,000 sale that is £32,000 to £60,000. Whether that is money wasted or money well spent depends entirely on whether competition between buyers would have raised your price by more than the fee.
Business broker fees: what they actually charge
Fee structures vary, but the shape is consistent. A success fee on completion, sometimes with an upfront or monthly retainer, and often a minimum fee that bites hardest on smaller deals.
| Deal size | Typical success fee | On completion |
|---|---|---|
| Under £300k | 10% to 15%, often with a minimum | £30k to £45k on a £300k sale |
| £300k to £1m | 8% to 12% | £40k to £120k on a £500k to £1m sale |
| £1m to £5m | 5% to 10%, often on a sliding scale | Falls as size rises |
Some also charge a retainer whether or not the business sells, and many listings never complete. That combination, a fee for a process that may not finish, is the part sellers underestimate.
What you are actually paying for
This is worth being fair about, because the case for a broker is real in some situations. A good one does five things.
- Creates competition. The genuine value. Several interested buyers is what moves a price, and it is hard to manufacture on your own.
- Filters time-wasters. Listing publicly attracts a lot of people who will never transact. Someone has to sort them.
- Prepares the materials. Financial packs, an information memorandum, the answers to the eighty questions every buyer asks.
- Runs the process. Chasing, scheduling, keeping momentum. Deals die from drift more than from disagreement.
- Absorbs the awkward conversations. Price and terms are easier to negotiate through an intermediary than face to face with someone you will hand your business to.
When a broker earns the fee
A broker sells one thing: competition. Where a business would credibly draw four or five funded bidders at once, that competition can beat the commission, and that is a real situation worth naming.
Two things to test before assuming you are in it. First, would four bidders actually turn up, or one? A single bidder in a brokered process is an auction that never happened, and you pay the fee anyway. Second, run the net: headline, minus commission, minus four or five more months of holding the business, minus the real chance it does not complete at all. If that number still beats a direct offer available now, list it. Plenty of businesses do not clear that bar, which is the only reason this page exists.
When it is not worth it
- Smaller businesses. Minimum fees mean the effective percentage on a £200,000 sale can be brutal.
- Businesses with an obvious flaw. If revenue is declining or the traffic is concentrated, competition will not materialise. You are paying for an auction that never happens.
- When you value confidentiality highly. A listing is seen by many people, and word travels in small niches.
- When you already have a buyer. Paying 10% to introduce you to someone you already know is not a service.
- When speed matters more than the last 10%. Months of process has a cost that never appears on the invoice.
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Selling direct is not free, it is just that you pay in effort rather than commission. Five things you take on yourself.
- The financial pack. Twelve to twenty-four months of P&L reconciled to the bank, platform analytics, ad account exports, supplier terms. Do this once, properly, and it serves every conversation.
- Buyer qualification. Before sharing anything sensitive: do they have the funds, have they bought before, what is their timeline. A buyer who dodges those questions is not a buyer.
- An NDA before financials. Non-negotiable, and normal. Any credible buyer signs one without discussion.
- Escrow. Never transfer assets against a promise to pay. Funds sit with an escrow agent and release when both sides confirm the transfer. This protects you more than it protects the buyer.
- Legal review of the purchase agreement. The one place not to save money. A solicitor reviewing the sale agreement costs a fraction of one point of commission.
Protecting yourself in a direct sale
Two risks come up repeatedly, and both are avoidable.
The retrade. A buyer agrees a price, runs diligence, then reduces the offer at the last moment over something they already knew. The defence is to disclose fully and early, so there is nothing left to discover, and to agree in writing that price only reopens on a material misstatement.
Transferring before you are paid. Under time pressure, sellers hand over the store or the domain before funds clear. Escrow exists precisely for this, and a buyer who resists using it is telling you something useful.
The comparison worth running
Take a realistic brokered price, deduct the commission, then deduct the value of three to six more months of holding the business, including the risk that something goes wrong with an ad account or a supplier in that window. Compare that number to a direct offer available now. Sometimes the broker still wins. The point is to do the arithmetic rather than assume either way.
For the underlying numbers, see the ecommerce valuation guide, and the platform-specific detail in the Shopify and Amazon FBA guides.
Common questions
Typically 8% to 15% of the sale price at this size, with higher percentages on smaller deals and minimum fees that bite hardest below £300,000. Some also charge a retainer whether or not the business sells. On a £400,000 sale, commission of £32,000 to £60,000 is normal.
Yes. You take on the financial pack, buyer qualification, the NDA, escrow arrangements and legal review yourself. The trade-off is that you keep the commission but lose the competitive tension a broker can create between several bidders.
It depends on whether your business would genuinely attract multiple bidders. If it is growing, clean and above roughly £500,000 of annual profit, competition can add more than the fee and a broker is the rational choice. If revenue is declining or traffic is concentrated in one channel, competition will not materialise and you are paying for an auction that never happens.
Sign a mutual NDA before sharing financials, qualify the buyer's funding before sharing anything sensitive, use an escrow agent so funds are secured before any asset transfers, disclose fully and early so there is nothing left to discover in diligence, and have a solicitor review the purchase agreement.
A retrade is when a buyer agrees a price, runs diligence, then reduces the offer over something they already knew. Avoid it by disclosing fully and early so there is nothing left to find, and by agreeing in writing that price only reopens on a material misstatement rather than on general findings.
Usually. A direct sale to a single decision maker typically completes in 4 to 8 weeks, while a brokered process more commonly runs 3 to 6 months because of listing preparation, marketing the business and running several buyer conversations in parallel.