How Buying Works
- Browse free. Browsing and viewing listings is free, with no account required to look.
- Read the labels. Every figure is labelled Seller-stated, Evidence supplied, or Data-connected. Seller-stated means the seller provided it and OBE has not independently verified it.
- Enquire. Send a structured enquiry on a listing that interests you. You will be asked to accept the Buyer Acknowledgement: OBE does not audit, value, or recommend businesses.
- Do your due diligence. Verify claims from primary sources, with your own legal and accounting advisors. Ask for read-only access and records, not screenshots alone.
- Deal directly. Negotiation, documents, payment, and transfer happen directly between you and the seller. If you want escrow, engage a third-party escrow service yourselves — OBE does not hold funds.
How Selling Works
- Apply — Complete the Founding Seller Application (name, email, business, category, approximate asking price). No account is needed to apply, and no sensitive financial documents are requested on the form.
- Prepare Your Listing — We work with you to prepare the listing from the information you supply: description, figures with their period and basis, what’s included, and your evidence position. OBE AI drafting help, where used, produces a draft only.
- Review — OBE reviews the draft for completeness, consistency, and prohibited claims. You approve the exact final text. Nothing publishes without your approval.
- Publish — Your approved listing goes live for its term with every figure labelled by evidence tier.
- Receive Enquiries — Structured buyer enquiries are routed to you. You negotiate and close directly with the buyer, with your own advisors.
What is public vs. confidential
- Public (only after your approval): the listing description, category, asking price, and the financial figures you choose to display — each labelled with its evidence tier, currency, and period.
- Confidential (never published): your contact details beyond the enquiry route, your application answers not intended for display, and any documents you later supply for the Evidence supplied tier. Documents are never attached to the public listing.
How approval and enquiries work
Manual approval is ON for every listing — there is no auto-publish. A material change to price, figures, included assets, or deal structure returns the listing to review and needs your approval of the revised text. Enquiries arrive as structured messages identifying the listing; you reply directly to the buyer.
How sellers update or withdraw
Update or withdraw at any time through your account or by contacting info@onlinebusinessexchange.com. A withdrawn, expired, or sold listing stops receiving enquiries immediately.
Evidence & Trust — where every number came from
A marketplace that repeats a seller’s figure as fact is asking you to trust the wrong party. OBE labels every figure with its source instead.
- Seller-stated — provided by the seller, not independently verified.
- Evidence supplied — documentation provided — receipt of a document is not review or verification of it.
- Data-connected — from a connected source, with source, period, last sync and limitations identified.
Labels apply per figure, not per listing. One listing can carry all three.
“Verified” is used on this site only for a specific Data-connected metric, and only in the sense the Listing and Evidence Policy defines. There is no “verified business” badge.
A business is described as profitable only where its supplied figures support it, with the basis and period shown.
Missing information is shown as “Not disclosed” — never estimated, never shown as zero.