Advice for startup. Buying a website?

Ive been looking to startup a web based business and came accross people selling already built sites on ebay. Before you guys laugh.

I understand that if I or anyone were to buy one of these sites its really just a template and a domain and truly not "established" and the drop shipping thing is probably not the greatest idea.

Other than that. what else should i be worried about buying
something like what this seller has to offer?
http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?sofocus=so&sbrftog=1&catref=C6&from=R10&satitle=&sacat=-1%26catref%3DC6&sadis=200&fpos=ZIP%2FPostal&sacqyop=ge&sacqy=&ftrt=1&ftrv=1&sabdlo=&sabdhi=&saprclo=&saprchi=&seller=1&sass=sitesolution&so=Show+Items&fsop=1&fsoo=2

Im already suspicous because the seller doesnt have an established feedback rating.
thanks i advance

I'd steer clear of such offers. While it is possible for one to turn out successful, the chance of being unsuccessful is far greater. You can't just open a box, add water, and have a profitable business. There's effort involved that you can't package. You need to make a name for yourself.

Just as you're suspicious of the seller of these sites, any potential customers you will encounter will be suspicious of you for the content of your site.

Overall there potential risk is involved in buying and selling on eBay, you should check the reviews from others and comments from the sellers and well manage yourself in some tricky situation, if you have some questions do not hesistate to ask from the seller to clarify it before you make a final deal.

"Customers make purchases from your website and you just use the list of drop shippers we provide you with to ship the item out to them."

This is a backdoor way of getting you to be there salesmen. They sell you the website and domain. I have a feeling they keep it hosted on there servers (which you probably have to pay for). So you really can't take your new 1.00 business and detach yourself from them. You front the expenses of advertising, which for online business can be a major expense. Once you have busted your butt getting advertising out there, and get a few orders for them you probably get a very small profit.

If you’re starting a web based business the most important thing you can do is research research, and research it. There are entire libraries for businesses. You can go to your local library and probably find an e-commerce section.

Good Luck!

thanks for the great replies. Im assumming when these sellers build these websites they are useing thier own hosting and/or getting a referal. They are also probably a middle man with the true dropshipper making a referal on all items perchased.

If thats true what stops someone from buying one of these websites and then change all the dropshipping and transfer the hosting? Or is it that almost noone who would buy a prebuilt site would know enough to do all that and thats the reason they make thier money?

approximatly how much would a site like this cost to have developed?
http://www.megapetsoutlet.com/
thanks again

They will probably have penalties built in so if you do transfer the hosting it will cost a fair amount of cash.

Regarding the cost to build an ecommerce site, well it depends how much you can do yourself. You can pick something like oscommerce which is an open source online shop/shopping cart product and develop it yourself. Failing that, phone around some web dev companies in your area to get an idea. Most will charge a flat fee but some might be willing to do it for next to nothing as long as they get a % of any sales.