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Questions & Answers
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- Q u e s t i o n s -
- A n s w e r s -
1. How do I choose a Category for my Business ?
There are over 40 different business "Categories" available to
choose from - each business listing can choose any two of these
to be listed under. My suggestion would be to first pick
a common one (like "Retail Store" or "Food Service") and then
pick a more specific one (like "Education" or "Arts") as the
second choice. This way, your ad can be seen by both the
"general" business shopper as well as a more particular buyer.
See the list of the available "Categories" and notice the number of current listings
(shown in brackets) for each category to help determine it's
popularity. It's not necessary, or even desirable to
have available any extremely detailed specific categories
- such as: "Children's dresses for
4 to 8 yr olds".
If you are having trouble in selecting a second category
that you like for your business, simply repeat your first
category (on the data entry screen), and when we review
your ad, we will select an appropriate alternate for you.
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2. Should I choose "Relocatable - Yes" for my Listing ?
Generally, "Relocatable" means that the business can be
operated successfully from some location other than the one
that it's currently operating from. Some Sellers decide to
use this feature to simply indicate that the business building
is "leased", and that a new Purchaser could lease a
different building if they wanted to in a different part
of the same town. Of course, relocation of most
businesses often means a significant loss of existing
customers and the new owner may or may not be successful
in the new location. As the Seller, you should be
prepared to substantiate why you believe that this business
is "Relocatable".
Truly relocatable businesses are something like a Mail-Order
business, where they can be operated successfully and with the
same degree of activity as they have now, from any province
within Canada. These businesses are flagged by the
Business Sell Canada staff
and listed as "Relocatable" on all of the province pages.
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3. Why does my business Location only show the Province ?
Many business owners, quite rightfully, are concerned that
disclosing the exact location and name of their business
(the fact that it's for sale) will materially affect their
current business operation and profit. They're
concerned that their employees may consider leaving,
and that their existing customers may become nervous
and start to look elsewhere for an alternate supplier.
The "For Sale" listings at Business Sell Canada are sorted
into pages based only on the first letter of the
Postal Code of the business address. This typically
covers a whole province, although sometimes it's only a
part of a province like "Eastern Ontario", or even just
a city like Toronto (or Montreal). For most sellers,
this is a quite acceptable division and provides sufficient
anonymity while filtering out prospective purchasers that
are too distant. If however, your business would
benefit from a more exact location, then you should plan
to include it's location within the Title description.
Like: "Motel on Lake Superior
near Nipigon."
If you're really concerned about location disclosure, then
you can enter any Postal code starting with the letter "Q"
and it will then say a location of "Canada" and it will NOT be
displayed on any of the Province pages.
If your business is truly "Relocatable" (see item
answer above), then the choice of Postal Code does not matter
as your title will appear on all of the Province pages anywise.
If a business is relocatable only within its existing
Province, then your choice of "Relocatable" will still show
on your own "Details" page, but your title will not be shown
on any of the other Province pages. A typical
example of this is a trucking business that is only
licensed to operate in, say, Manitoba - it is relocatable
anywhere within Manitoba but cannot legally operate outside
that province.
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4. How do I add a picture or logo to my advertisement ?
If you have an existing picture that's already hosted on the web
somewhere, you can enter the URL (like: http://www.site.com/picture_name.jpg)
to your listing information in the appropriate box when you
originally enter your ad. If you miss that opportunity, you can
simply email us the URL afterwards and ask us to insert it into your
ad for you. Remember to tell us your Listing Number in the
email so that we get it onto the right advert.
If you already have a picture in electronic form (jpeg, jpg or gif)
on your computer, then you can just e-mail it to us as an email
'attachment'. If you only have a photograph, then you will
need to visit a local computer store or ask a friend to "scan" it
into "jpeg" format for you. Then e-mail it to us as an
attachment. Make sure that you tell us your listing number
so that we can insert it correctly.
A photograph with your ad, or a logo, always helps sell it.
We have room for 1 or 2 photos with your ad. If you have
more than that, save them to email to interested buyers.
Remember, a photo showing happy customers enjoying your product
is always more appealing than one showing a room with empty chairs
and a building with an empty parking lot.
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5. Is it a requirement to also place regular newspaper ads ?
No - there's no requirement to advertise your business
for sale in any other place other than here at www.BusinessSellCanada.com.
We are pleased to host your ad for you - and to make it available
to be seen by buyers from around the world on the Web.
We do suggest however, that a well balanced approach to your
advertising of your business for sale will return the most
effective results to you in the most timely fashion.
Obviously, advertising in the local community newspaper won't find
you a cross-Canada buyer; and to the same extent, web advertising
often misses out on the local employees, customers & suppliers
who already deal with you and know of your company and its reputation.
It all depends on your commitment to selling, the confidentiality
of the sale, and the time that you have available to make the
sale. The choice is yours. Our commitment to you is
to provide your ad with effective World Wide Web exposure within
the Canadian-wide business and investment community.
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6. My business is not located in Canada, but I want to sell it to a Canadian.
When you originally enter the Listing information for the business,
simply enter a Postal Code of "ZZZ" in the appropriate box.
This will cause the Listing to show a location of "Not in Canada"
in place of the usual Canadian Province or Region name.
You are however well advised to make it very clear to prospective
purchasers both in the Title and the text of the ad, that the
business is currently located in a different country other
than Canada and that the purchaser may or must relocate to
this other country. Also, you should be aware that the
Asking Price shown in the ad is always entered and displayed
in 'Canadian' dollars.
Your ad Title, Location & Price will appear in the general list
of ads along with all the others and also in the 2 category
pages that you've chosen but it will not appear in any
of the Canadian Province or Region pages.
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7. Should I show the full name of my business in my Ad descriptions ?
It's your choice... What it hinges on is the answer to the question:
"If people start to know that your business
is For Sale, will your customers, employees and suppliers start to
treat you differently" ?
.... Customers starting to look for an alternate place to buy the same
product - in case you go out of business; Employees starting to look
for a new job, or perhaps just not working as hard and not caring
as much; and, Suppliers no longer giving you long term "credit"
terms ....
If the answer is "Yes" then keep the business name hidden and
don't even tell a potential buyer on the first email.
Just mention a vague location for the business like: "near
Kitchener, Ontario".
This is actually for the benefit of the new owner as much as
it is for your benefit. The new owner wants to be
purchasing a viable business that still has it's customers
and suppliers and has key employees willing to remain on
and keep continuity with the original customers.
So don't be hesitant in keeping things secret until the
right time. A good buyer will understand.
Also see the answer to the question below for further useful
hints and recommendations.
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8. I'm concerned that people will find out that my business is For Sale and cause a problem.
We fully understand your concerns. In many cases, premature
announcement that the owner's selling the business can substantially
interfere with the existing customers, staff, and suppliers.
Of course, there's a certain level of information that is
required to attract an interested buyer, and the more
"secretive" you are, the less that a prospective buyer
will see your business location / description as a 'fit'
for what he's looking for.
That having been considered, it's quite possible to list
your business here at
www.BusinessSellCanada.com
and keep it's location a secret from the general public.
1. Only the first letter of the Postal Code is actually
required to display the business in it's province page.
For example, B.C. = "V". On initial entry, you will
have to put in the first 3 digits of the Postal Code, but
you can send us an email and we'll remove the last two
leaving only (for example) the "V" - before it's made public.
2. Use a generic email address for responses (
hotmail or gmail). Compose a standard response letter
to send to inquiries which details things like cash flow,
size of business and profits - but is quite vague about the
business's location (like: Lower Mainland of B.C.).
Make sure that you use that generic email account when you
respond - and not your 'business' email account that has
your name on it.
3. "Qualify" your buyers before you release sensitive
information to them. Ask them why they want to buy
the business, do they know how to run it, have they got
the money now? If you're really cautious, make
arrangements with your bookkeeper or lawyer (or perhaps
your brother-in-law) to do some of the initial responses
with the prospective buyers.
4. If an employee / customer / supplier finds out or guesses
and asks you if the business is currently For Sale, I always
respond with: "I'm a businessman ... every business
that I own is always for sale all the time - at the right
price of course. Would you like to buy it or do you
know of somebody who would ?" "How much ?" -
"How much have you got ?"
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9. Can I hide my E-mail address - I'm concerned about getting Spam & Scams !
Your email address on your ad details page is already obscured
using JavaScript which hides it from spammers' robots so that
they can't harvest your address automatically.
Obviously honest buyers have to be able to contact you to ask you
about your business - and therefore so can dishonest buyers,
conmen, and spam senders. There's no way to allow only
'honest' people to contact you, and if we make it too hard for
people to contact you, then legitimate buyers who aren't too
familiar with computers and email, and buyers whose computer
is not configured to send emails from webpage links, won't be
able to contact you and ultimately won't be able to buy your
business.
What we recommend is that you sign-up for a public, no cost, email
address at Hotmail
or Google gmail
and use that address here for the responses to your ad.
You can abandon / erase this temporary email address later on when your
sale is complete.
If you're concerned about scams (conmen), please read our pages:
Protection from "Spam" & "Scams"
for some valuable tips.
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10. My Listing info is shown in dim gray, while all the others are bright coloured print !
This is a feature of your own computer and your Internet Browser.
When you have once "visited" a link, it then changes colour (often gray)
to tell you that you've already been there before. This feature
is most useful to Buyers who are browsing through the site and seeing
the same listing line appear on several different pages (Province,
Category, etc.).
Be assured, we're not picking on you. The effect that you're
currently seeing, others are not seeing, and it will go away for
you usually within the next day.
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11. I made changes to my Listing details & price, and it still looks the same as before.
This is a feature of your own computer and your Internet Browser.
When you have once viewed a web page, a copy of that page is stored
in the memory cache on your own computer to be re-displayed again
if you come back to it.
This cached copy of the page, of course, doesn't notice the recent
changes that you've just made to the page on the site.
To view the real page from the website again, you need to go
to the page and choose, on the top ToolBar of your Browser,
"View" --> "Refresh/Reload". This will cause
your Browser to re-acquire the current copy of the page from the site.
In general, other people aren't noticing this effect as they
acquire each page directly from the site when they
first visit it. The cached copy on your computer will
expire in a day or so.
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12. Why are some Listings shown with different buttons - NEW, New Price, More Details ?
For the first 30 days or so, each newly added Listing is shown with
a red "NEW" button. After that time, it reverts to a maroon
"More Details" button like most of the other Listings.
If you change the Asking Price on your Listing, then the "More
Details" button will change to a red "New Price" one (unless it's
still within the first 30 days and it is currently saying
"NEW"). The "New Price" button lasts for about 30 days and
then it reverts back to the standard "More Details" one.
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13. Why does my Listing move to different pages every day ? Can I get on the first page ?
When a Listing is first entered, or on it's 'renewal' date, it
starts out at the end of last page of the General Browse
pages. Each day, as time goes by, it 'floats' up towards
page one of the General list pages - until it's 2 month's term
is just about up.
This procedure, which is automatic, keeps the site views fresh
and rotates all listings throughout all pages. We do not
sell Preferred Spots for any Business for Sale listing.
On the Province and Category pages, New Listings are added at the
bottom of the appropriate last page, and float up towards the top,
over time, as listings above them are either sold or are not
renewed. These pages have fewer listings available,
and don't need rotation as much as the General pages.
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19. When my Ad's 'Expired' - should I 'Renew' it or re-list it all again as 'New' ?
There are advantages and disadvantages to you either way. If it's
a 'paid' Renewal, then there's no difference in the cost to you,
but there are other important considerations.
A "RENEWAL" keeps your existing listing number and your existing
priority (nearer the top) of the Category and Province pages.
There's also a certain amount of 'Search Engine' identity for
World Wide Web searchers that you have built up over the last
few months - that you will keep and which would be lost if you
did a 'NEW' listing.
A 'NEW' listing gives you a whole new opportunity to say it
all over again in a newer, fresher way. However, you
also start all over again at the bottom of the Category and
Province listing pages, and you loose any Google identity
that you had previously earned. You will however have
a "NEW" icon showing on your Listing line for about the first
month, and also you'll be 'Featured' on the front page
of this web site and on our News feed for about the first
week of the new listing.
It's your choice. One compromise that you may want
to consider, is to request a 'Renewal', but to edit your
Price and the Title information for the Listing, thereby
getting some fresh wording in front of the prospective
buyers, and also getting a 'New Price' icon on the Listing line.
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