There are 4 main types of businesses for sale on Ebay.

1. The real storefront business. These are rare but sometimes if you are lucky you might find a great deal on a real store that wants to sell out lock, stock and barrell. Generally you buy the whole inventory and you may or may not aquire the store itself. Be sure you know exactly what you are getting. This can be a great purchase or a nightmare. The investment is usually high so the risk is generally very high. Why does the current owner want to sell? You better do some serious research before you buy one of these. You might stike gold but then again, you might aquire nothing more than a headache and lose your money.

2. Legitimate Franchise. A franchise is something you will want to investigate. You need to be sure they have a track record of success. Ask for profit examples that apply to everyone, not just a few lucky people. Occasionally you can find a great franchise from a reliable vendor. The upside of a Franchise is that they generally have a good business plan in place and the risk is low. You will want to measure the investment against the guaranteed returns or what you might consider the "worst case scenario". Be sure you understand the duration of the contracts and all the fees involved. Most franchisers have managers who are there to help you get up and running. A franchise can be a great way to go and of all the types of businesses on Ebay for sale, this is the type I suggest everyone consider.

3. Affiliate website. In my humble opinion this is absolutely the worst possible investment on Ebay. Website designers regularly take an affiliate plugin and embed it into a cut and paste website. These websites can look beautiful. Then they slap an auction together suggesting that you can get rich if you buy it and promote it. You have to do some serious thinking here and clear the brain fog. If it were valuable, they would promote it themself and not try to get a few bucks from you for it. If you are legitimately interested in an offer like this, go out on the Internet and search for related affiliate programs and get all the details so you know what you are getting. If you find a great affiliate program you want to try, you might look on ebay for programmers that will help you put it all together. It will cost a little more but it will be worth it. There are some good affiliate programs online but you really need to do your homework. I personally would not not to buy one that has been sold dozens of times over to others before you.

4. The expensive domain name auction. These are for sale for HUGE prices. You absolutely can NOT trust any domain name appraisal online. Look at companies like "Ebay" - "Google" and many others. If you truly run a good business with goods and services which are in demand, you can operate under any name at all and do well. Save the big investment and use it to promote a different name. These are generally affiliate sites on a domain name which is really not very valuable. If the auction claims there is an existing income from the business, ask the seller if you can have your lawyer contact them to confirm that.