Acquisitions Anonymous - #1 for business buying, selling and operating - Buying an Amazon FBA Business Amid Tariff Chaos

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

This Amazon FBA shower filter business has $10M in revenue, $2.5M in EBITDA, and up to 50% recurring revenue—but will Chinese tariffs kill the deal?Business Listing - https://quietlight.com/listings/16050561/📣 Episode Sponsors:👉 Learn how to buy a business with confidence through Acquisition Lab – the premier program for entrepreneurs seeking to acquire a small business: https://www.acquisitionlab.com/👉 Need SBA financing to close your deal? VISO Business Capital connects buyers with over 30 lenders to find the best loan structure fast. Schedule a free consult: https://www.visocap.net (Click "Zoom Sign-Up" top right)Website: https://www.acquanon.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/acquanon✉️ Subscribe to our Newsletter and get more deals like this every week: https://www.acquanon.com/newsletter🔔 Subscribe to Acquisitions Anonymous: https://www.youtube.com/@AcquisitionsAnonymousPodcast?sub_confirmation=1🎧 Listen to our full episodes on your favorite podcast platforms: https://www.acquanon.com/episodesIn this episode, Heather and Bill break down a $10M revenue Amazon FBA business selling vitamin-infused, multi-stage shower filters with a strong 40–50% recurring revenue from cartridge replacements. But there's a catch—its supply chain is deeply tied to China, and new tariff policies may render the business nearly untransactable. The hosts explore what makes the brand compelling, how SBA financing applies (even with a potential carve-out), and the real-world impact of uncertain global trade conditions on e-commerce sellers today. They also dive into new SBA SOP updates and creative (and sometimes sketchy) ways sellers are dodging tariffs.🔑 Key Highlights:$10M revenue / $2.5M EBITDA Amazon FBA business selling advanced filtration showerheads40–50% of revenue is recurring via cartridge replacementsNew SBA lending SOP may open doors for carve-outsDeep dive into how tariffs (up to 200%) are freezing e-commerce dealsOnshoring vs. offshoring and the real limitations for US manufacturingThe risk of platform dependence (100% Amazon sales)Insights into how importers are attempting to dodge tariffs with DDP shipping and false declarationsThe challenge of pricing a deal in high-uncertainty environmentsSubscribe to weekly our Newsletter and get curated deals in your inboxAdvertise with us by clicking here Do you love Acquanon and want to see our smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel. Do you enjoy our content? Rate our show! Follow us on Twitter @acquanon Learnings about small business acquisitions and operations. For inquiries or suggestions, email us at [e-mail]

I'm fascinated. As a woman, I'm like, I want to buy this filter. Like, it's going to put vitamins in my hair and it actually sounds pretty cool. Like, it sounds like a really neat product. It seems at this point the cartridge revenue is not theoretical at all. It's 40 to 50% of sales. That is great. Is that Acquisition Anonymous? A hundred percent. I'm a hundred percent. Hello, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. Welcome back to another episode of Acquisitions Anonymous. This is the Internet's net. number one podcast on buying, selling, and operating small businesses. And we have a great episode for you today. This is a business with 10 million in revenue, over two and a half million bucks

of EBITDA. It's an Amazon FBA business selling filtration showerheads, 25-layer filtration showerheads with revitalizing inserts. So they have 40 to 50% recurring revenue as people switch out their cartridges. So it's a big business with recurring revenue. It's from the folks who quiet light. Heather and I have a really interesting chat. Obviously, we talk about the business, but we also talk about the whole tariff situation and how e-commerce sellers are responding to it. Heather also enlightens us about some changes in the new SBA lending SOP that came out last week. So really, really interesting episode touching on a lot of really different topics.

I hope you'll enjoy this episode of Acquisitions Anonymous. Are you ready to take a leap into business ownership but you don't know where to start? Well, look no further than Acquisition Lab, the premier resource for entrepreneurs seeking to buy their dream business, founded by Harvard MBA and acquisition expert Walker Dibel, the lab is your fast-track to success in the search diligence and acquisition process. With hands-on support, world-class resources, and a community of like-minded entrepreneurs, Acquisition Lab gives you the tools and confidence to navigate every step of the journey. And we're proud to call Walker and Chelsea, the lab's director, longtime friends of the podcast.

They're passionate about helping entrepreneurs like you take the next big step. So don't wait to make your business ownership dream of reality, visit AcquisitionLab.com today to learn more and schedule your free consultation. And when you do, be sure to tell them the Acquisitions Anonymous podcast sent you. Hello, Heather, this is one of those days where we wasted 20 minutes just hanging out before hitting your We're like, oh, wait, we're supposed to do an episode. Okay, let's do that. This is one of my favorite things about this podcast, though, is this happens frequently. Like, we get on Zoom, you know, you and me or whatever subset of the co-hosts are doing that episode. And before you know it, like 15 minutes, we've gone by and people were like,

someone press record. We can't just hang out all day. True, but it was fun. It was fun. It was fun. Yeah. But we have a good, we have a good e-commerce deal today that touches on some current events. And it is from our friends at Quiet Light Brokerage. So I can, I think I can share it if Heather, you want to read it. I'll start reading it while you put it up on the screen. So it's a seven-year-old Amazon FBA shower filter business with no seasonality because showers are apparently year-round. At least for me. I don't know about you. And 25% net margins.

Revenue 9.8 million income 2.4, multiple 4.2. Asking price is 10,200,000 plus inventory. Launched in 2017, this business was created by a seasoned Amazon. ecosystem pro. After thorough research, the sellers discovered a very large market with a huge opportunity for improvement. At the time, most of the competition was selling a three-stage water filtration system. The sellers introduced a 10-stage, 15-stage, and eventually 20-stage filtration system that raised the bar for the entire filtration industry. In fact, better homes and gardens ranked their shower heads first for best shower filter in 2023. One of the founders has a

background in chemistry, which allowed them to test and ensure each filtration state is scientifically validated. In addition to the 20-stage filter, they offer filters that add various vitamins to the water. Wow. With this business, a buyer is presented with the opportunity to acquire a thriving brand in a large niche and grow the business through expanded product offerings and more focus on subscription customers. One exciting operational trend is the steady nature of the business month after month. It is rare to find a business without a busy season or a slow season. Again, showers are year-round. Because the cartridges need to be replaced, the sellers believe that about 40 to 50% of their sales each year come from repeat purchases. They believe in their products so much that they

encourage customers to get a free water report through an easy form on their website. The sellers recommend having a 3PL located on the West Coast, ideally in California. The business requires 30,000 square foot of office space of space, excuse me, to allow for shipping to Amazon FBA. They also recommend partnering with a 3PL that can handle FBM orders, as this provides the best mix of options to manage the business logistics. The products are sourced from a couple of suppliers in China. The sellers have accomplished all of their goals and would like to pass the business on to a new owner who can take it to new heights. And this is being listed by Brad Weyland, quiet light. Wow. Interesting. What do you think, Bill? Interesting. Shout out to Brad.

Listen to the pod. You might probably listen to this one. So this, I really want to do this one today because I think it's so interesting for so many reasons. So like to start with like, look at this business these people have built. It's 10 million in sales, two and a half million a year of income. And people take showers every day. So steady state, right? And, you know, 4.2x multiple. I think we talk about the price. later as we usually do, but a couple of things I just wanted to call out from this listing that popped out to me. One, it's been around since 2017. So I like this. It's hard to find, you know, Amazon businesses that have been around this long. Very often you'll see you thought

two or three years old. And I would run screaming from Amazon businesses that are two to three years old. They just don't have enough history to, and they certainly don't have a quote brand, even though, you know, sellers will tell you they do. But that's one thing I like about this. something else jumped off the page to me, which is that it says this business was created by seasoned Amazon ecosystem pros, which means this is definitely not their only business. That's right. And further down the page, it says something interesting, which is that the sellers recommend having a 3PL located on the West Coast, ideally in California, and they give you some specs for what your 3PL should have. What's interesting, though, is that what are they doing now? This implies to me that it is being done in their own warehouse or their 3PL and you can't continue doing that.

But like that these guys have multiple businesses and they're kind of framing this of like what you need to do if you buy it. That sounds like you've got to rip it out of their facility. So that is like one A that I want to understand, you know, going into this. Not that it's not possible. But like that means you got to get a quote. You got to understand the new costing, you know, and you got to recast. the EBITDA based on what it looks like not in their facility. And you've got to get a really good 3PL RFP during your diligence process.

Wow. It's not hard. I mean, 3PL is a commodity. Like there's plenty of places that will do this. You just got to make sure that you understand it. Yeah. And if it's in their own facility,

do you think it also means it could be a carve out like entity wise? Could this be just a division of a larger company? And you're also buying a carve out financially speaking? It could be. I hope not because that would be. definitely make it hairy. I mean, certainly from an FBI or a SBA point of view that would make it instantly ineligible, right? Well, no. Actually, it's just what's interesting about that, the new SOP came out this week. It was a exhausting week for me. Yeah. And also kind of scary, but it

turned out fine. One of the positive changes was that in carve out situations, the SOP now says the lender can use CPA prepared or reviewed financial statements in lieu of a tax return, where a tax return does not exist. So it is now more of a common sense decision by a bank, but carve-outs are still never easy, no matter how you slice it, if it's all wrapped up in one entity with possible shared services, it's maybe easy to separate out the revenue side, but it's very difficult to actually recreate P&Ls that have the proper expense side to it, if it's a carve-out, if it's all being reported up under one entity. And that's what's so hard, because the only person who can really create, recreate the SGNA part of the P&L and really understand

what costs are required there is the seller, right? Because they understand it. And the conflict of interest is pretty immense, obviously. So it requires really deep diligence by buyer to really understand what you need to run this business and not just taking seller's word for it. And then you should still haircut it. That's my opinion. I've worked on my share of carveouts and even the best.

pros that have done them still discount your cash flow again at the end for the stuff you just don't know, you know, the other expenses that you might have. But it's not clear that that's the case here, but yeah, a good hint that if they're in this, they're in the other facility, you know, we need to ask the question, does this have its own P&L, own tax return, its own cost, you know, no shared services, that kind of thing. I'm fascinated. As a woman, I'm like, I want to buy this filter. Like, it's going to put vitamins in my hair and yeah it actually sounds pretty cool like it sounds like a really neat product yeah so this so Heather just before I go to the product because you mentioned something which is that you need to haircut it and you need to build a buffer in which illustrates

to me I just think one of like the guiding principles of small business acquisition of any type which is that price is the best diligence right you every deal not just to carve out you need a buffer for stuff you didn't figure out. Absolutely. You have to underwrite this thing. Like, even if you feel like you've diligented all the way to the ends of the earth, there's going to be stuff that you're not going to find. We bought a business once.

And I don't know if you've ever heard the phrase like desk drawer liabilities, like things you might find in the desk drawer that you know, you didn't know where there. We found literal desk drawer liabilities. There was a desk at their HQ from their accountant who they had fired like a couple months ago with vendor bills in it. And there were like 50 grand. of bills that we had to eat because they were just hidden.

And they weren't, we just had to eat them for various reasons. So you have to build in buffer for the stuff that you missed. And it's got to underwrite even at EBITDA that's not quite as good. Yeah, every single time. I think I just, I did a post on X this week after talking to a client who I had thought everything had gone great because it's been three years and he's really happy. But it turned out he lost two of his top three customers right after close because the seller had stopped taking care of things customer service-wise while going through the process.

So, I mean, yeah, every single time there's things that haven't even happened yet that are going to happen that you've got a sort of discount into it. Yeah, you just need a margin of safety. You do. Yeah, 100%. And so on the new SBA SOP, so I saw that that they will accept CPA prepared financials, which means you don't need a tax return. I had never put two and two together like you just did for me that the SBA never really

explicitly disallowed carve-outs, it's just that they required a tax return, which functionally disallowed carve-outs. Right. We still did them. Here's what would happen. We would do them, and certain banks would sort of stick their neck out and say that the quality of earnings kind of reconstruction could stand in as the third-party verification of the revenue. But a lot of banks wouldn't even try that because the SOP didn't explicitly say that was okay. So now it doesn't say the Q of E, it still doesn't say anything about Q of E, which I think is interesting. The SOP never says anything about that, so lenders don't usually even require it. But at least it says in cases where you can't get a standalone tax return, you could use the CPA reviewed or prepared or prepared

financials. So that's, so now you have something to stand on where you can feel like a carve out is more within. Yeah, you're not taking this big risk that the SBA is going to second guess you if you have those. So that's, I think that that's progress. There were other things that weren't, weren't kind of took took us back a couple years like some of the new rules we got a couple years ago are gone now but otherwise i think it was a it was an okay rewrite not a big deal that's great um so the product so the product showerhead 10 i laughed when i when you were reading this listing because you know first it was 10 stage then a 15 stage then a 20 stage filtration system and it It felt to me like the razor blade model, like three blades, five blades, ten blades, you know, one more blade, you know, seven minute abs. I was sitting there thinking, gosh, what's in my hair? I need to get this stuff filtered out. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, I mean, I just funny, but like that's consumer products in a nutshell, right? Like one more thing, one more thing. Yeah. This whole industry has really taken off. It's gotten kind of trendy to have shower filters, you know. This business, I think was at the right place at the right time or at the beginning of a trend.

I think the trend has been going on long enough that I wouldn't say it's a fad. You know, fads go away quickly. Trends are kind of here to stay. You like to invest in trends. You want to run away from fads. I think this has been going on long enough that it does seem to be a trend. I love that it needs cartridges, that it needs consumable cartridges. It's this 40 to 50 percent.

Literally razor, razor blade. It's literally razor razor blade down to the increasing number of blades. But I love that. And what's great, too, is this business has been around long enough to create the installed base that will buy your cartridges, right? If this is a two-year-old business, even with the same Razor Razor-Rasur Blades model, the Razor Blade's revenue is still a little bit theoretical. But it seems at this point the cartridge revenue is not theoretical at all. It's 40 to 50% of sales. Yeah.

I mean, that is great. Yeah. But there is one problem. What's your problem? Well, the suppliers in China. Yes, what a time to try to sell this business. Yeah, I mean, this was a great listing, you know, two months ago. I don't know how long we've been going through this trade war discussion, but before that, what a great business.

But now you've got to take a guess at a lot of things related to tariffs. what it's going to do to your price point and your supply chain in general. And, you know, how do you, should people even try to buy a business like this right now? What do they do? Well, that, I mean, that's, I think, the key point. Like, there's, I like a lot of things about this business. But I don't know if at this moment in time on, you know, on April of 2025, with the tariff and trade war situation as it is, I don't know if this is functionally

practice, transactable at all. Because if you're, if you're buyer, right, you're terrified because you've got, as it stands right now, 145%, 200, I don't even know what the number is, 200% tariffs. I mean, an insane amount of tariffs, right? That if you're buyer, you've got to recast the financials as though those tariffs are permanent, right? Now, if you're a seller, you're just completely unwilling to accept that, right? Right. Because you're going, This is temporary, like these tariffs are going to come down. But the fact of the matter is nobody knows, right? Seller doesn't know, buyer doesn't know.

And buyer has to take the, has to underwrite it, has to, as though they never go away. Otherwise, you're just straight up gambling. I mean, you might as well buy options or go to Vegas or something, right? Nobody knows what's coming out of Washington, D.C. So the uncertainty creates such a bid-ask spread. that it feels like until you have clarity on the tariffs, this business just doesn't transact. Hi, Heather here. When I'm not breaking down deals with these guys, I'm helping people get the right SBA loans for their business acquisitions. Because when you're buying a business, the best financing

isn't one size fits all. There's the best rate, fastest to close, the specific loan structure that you need, or a little of all of those things. That's why my company, Vizzo Business Capital, works with over 30 different lenders to find you the best funding in less time and with less friction. so you can focus on the deal. Sign up for a free live Q&A session on SBA loans at VisoCAP.net. Then click Zoom sign up in the top right corner. That's V-I-S-O-C-A-P.net and click Zoom sign up. Yeah, yeah, I agree with you because you've also got to be underwritten by not just the buyer,

but if the buyer is going to try to go forward, their financing partners, equity and debt. And they're going to be even more conservative, perhaps, you know, about what's going to be. happen. It's interesting, like you said, no one knows what's going to happen and it's a bet. It's a gamble. I wonder if we're going to end up, well, probably won't go on long enough for this, but some kind of derivatives or, you know, futures market where someone else will take the other side of the, of the bet. And you could hedge some of these tariff situations. Man, I do, I don't, like some sort of actual

contract where you can buy based on, like a swap. Yeah. Well, so I know you can actually gamble on it on some prediction markets already. Yeah, that's what I was thinking of polymarket, right? Cali she is the one that's actually you're allowed to do. Polymarket, it's crypto, and I think U.S. citizens are not supposed to do it, et cetera. But it's, polymarket is the deepest prediction market. But I think there are issues with it if you were like actually trying to use it to hedge real business exposure.

But Cali is the only prediction market that is credentialed and certified and U.S. citizens can use. And I know it's K-A-L-S-H-I, I think you say Kalshi. But anyway, like, I know they have markets on trade war, tariffs, terrorists by country, all that stuff. So, I mean, that being said, though, like, even still, like, how do you figure out at what tariff rate you want to hedge to? Like, do you want to lock in and assume 25% tariff? And, like, for how long, you know, forever? I still think it's hard to hedge.

Yeah. I'm sure it's very hard to hedge, but it's just kind of a thought that popped into my mind. Like, that's about the only way you could go forward is if you had some kind of hedge. Yeah. I mean, you just, which way it went. But you just got to have balls of steel to buy this business as a buyer right now. Yeah. Because you just have no idea. And I mean, seller, and this is the thing that's really tough for seller, right? I think it's just bad timing because they're probably thinking of selling their business long before, you know, this month. You know, there's a fresh listing on Quiet Lights website. Business is around for seven years, right? They build a really great business, 40, 50, we spent repeat revenue. And they're like, this is our year to sell. And then all of a sudden, boom.

And not only does it like materially impact their business, it also functionally freezes the market to sell their business. Yep. So I really feel for the sellers here. You know, if I'm buying, if I'm trying to do this deal, like if I want to do this deal, is there some world where. you diligence everything else and you like get to the finish line and wait. You know, like you get totally comfortable with everything else. You get it fully underwritten like assuming that the tariffs are removed and you basically

just stand there at the finish line waiting for clarity. You could. I mean, but time kills deals and that's the problem. You invest a lot of your time and your money in hurrying up and wait. and then as you're waiting, so many more things can come along to kill the deal. Yeah. That I think it's a risky strategy. But I will tell you, as, you know, in our practice at Vizzo, we have at least three deals where that's what we're forced to do at this point.

They don't want to walk away from the deal, but they are importing, you know, 50% or more of the products. And so we just have to kind of stand still and see if, you know, time kind of works that out. keep moving forward with the deal. So there's a lot that kind of just got caught in that, that we're already under LOI, already in some stage of the process when this happened. Yeah, it's tough. I mean, maybe you could sort of structure some sort of, you know, you underwrite it as though the tariffs are permanent, and you underwrite it as though the tariffs go away, and you underwrite it at some middle case. And you put some amount of, you value it all three ways, right? And then you put the gap between no tariffes.

tariffs and full tariffs in an escrow account for two years, and then you release it on certain dates based on the tariff. I mean, you could try to structure something like that, but I just, all of these things are possible, but getting agreement on them is going to be the hardest thing. Yeah. You know, closing the bid, ask spread and getting both parties to agree what's fair. That's why this is so hard to transact, not because you can't logistically do it. Yeah. Now, can a business like this? get, can they, can they, can they, onshore their, their manufacturing of this product or, you know, is it just too hard to tell?

I mean, it's, I don't know this niche, but I have talked to a ton of my entrepreneur, e-commerce friends over the last, you know, a month or two. And the problem is, like, for huge sections of all the things that are imported from China, we just don't have the supply chain to make them here at all. Really? So it would be a years-long process with uncertainty of how much it would even cost at the end. And that's the problem, and not to get on a soapbox here. Like, that's the problem with the implementation of all these tariffs is, you know, okay, let's say I do want to resure.

I'm a manufacturer and I want to make it in America. It's a multimillion dollar investment to build a U.S. factory, right? And multi-year investment. But I don't know if the tariffs go poof in three months. And now I've got a factory in the U.S. that I don't need at all. So without certainty, like, you can't resure anything. And the fact of matter is, regardless of what Trump does, in three and a half more years, he's not going to be president. And the timeline to build a factory can be three years. So, like, who breaks ground on anything,

you know, based on tariffs that are done by executive order? Yeah. That's the problem, right? I agree. As a lender, we know how long projects can take and you've got to have certainty to make investments. Right. Right. And I mean, I digress. But, The original question was, like, can you resure this? In general, the answer is either literally no, not possible supply chain doesn't exist, or practically no, because my cogs are triple. Yeah. Right. And when you think about, like, what tariffs are, tariffs are meant to equalize the cost of doing it there and the cost of doing it here. Right. So when you think about it, like the Chinese price plus the tariffs is a price.

pretty good guide for probably what the U.S. price is going to be. Right. And so either way, if you're going to import and pay the tariff or resure it, you kind of don't dodge the cost increase. Right. Either way. It's just kind of fundamentally. And insuring is more difficult because you have a long process to even get there, but you are still going to have the same price point. Is your customer going to keep buying? Right. So onshoreing doesn't fix your tariff problem. It just, instead of paying tariffs, you just pay a higher cost of goods. You still have your margin profile is permanently altered. So it's not really either way, it's either literally not possible or it's practically not possible without jacking the price up to the consumer substantially.

I have also talked to, I mean, if you'll want to entertain a digression around things people are doing to dodge these tariffs in e-commerce world, I think it might be interesting to some of our listeners. So I have talked to a ton of people over the last month or two. And, you know, I'm not saying anybody's doing this, but these are the things that are being talked about. There is a term of art in importing called substantial transformation. So a substantial transformation is like if you have steel and you convert it into a car door, like you have transformed it from steel to a car door, if you take something and you put a label on it, you've not fundamentally changed its nature. You've not substantially transformed it. And so you don't change the country of origin. So there are a lot

of people and especially Chinese sellers who are beyond the long arm of Uncle Sam, where they will just ship stuff to Malaysia or wherever a lower traffic country and then ship it from Malaysia to the United States and lie on the customs paperwork. And say it was substantially transformed. Say it was substantially transformed Malaysia when they didn't do anything at all to it. Right. But a lot of people are trying to figure out what is the threshold for substantial transformation. You know, can I have it assemble?

Can I ship all the parts to Malaysia and have them put it together? right? Can I ship, you know, the battery for it to Malaysia and have them put the battery in it? Is that enough to substantially transform it? Can I have it painted in Malaysia? Is that enough to substantially transform it? Everybody's trying to figure out what they can, I'm just using Malaysia as an example, you know, any other, pick any lower tariff country than China. Yeah. You know, can I, can I do the minimum amount to substantially transform it somewhere else and dodge these tariffs? So there's a lot of people trying to figure that out. And that, if you are substantially transforming, that is, that's kosher. That's okay. But you have to be legitimately substantially transforming. The other thing that is

not kosher, that is absolutely rampant, is something called DDP shipping, which is delivery duties paid. And this is where, instead of you, the American brand, in this case, the showerhead people, instead of them being, and I'm not saying they're doing this, I have no idea, but instead of them being the importer of record. The Chinese company says, oh, don't worry about it, will be the importer of record, and you buy it from us once it clears customs. So they will be, the Chinese, will be responsible for importing it. And very often, they will quote you a DDP delivery duties paid shipping rate, which is inclusive of tariffs. And I have seen the DDP rate be like 40 cents a kilogram more, like almost nothing. And the American brand is-

paying the tariff. Well, yeah, the American brand goes, how's this possible? And the answer is that the Chinese are lying on the paper. Right. Right. But the American brand kind of looks the other way because they go, I'm not the importer of record, right? You know, is CBP really going to come after me? I didn't do it.

I didn't do it. But the fact of the matter is you actually are liable. And CBP can come after you and prove negligence and come after you for those tariffs. But the problem is they can't come after the Chinese person. That's why the incentives are just all whacked here. because if you're a law-abiding American business, you have to pay the tariffs. If you're a not law-abiding Chinese business, if you're a non-resident importer, which is a status that needs to be removed, if you're non-resident importer, you can just cheat

and you get caught. And so what? Like, they can't come get you. Right. Interesting. So that, the problem with the way the tariffs have been implemented is actually further disadvantaged American businesses against Chinese businesses because the American businesses have to play by the rules or you go to prison. And the Chinese businesses, the non-resident importers, cheat extensively and get away with it because there's no enforcement. Wow. So for every rule, there's always a workaround or someone willing to really push the boundaries of the workaround. Yeah, yeah. And people who will simply just cheat. And policy changes

aren't as easy as, you know, people want to make them. Like you said, there's a lot of little rules that have to change to sort of tighten things up and make it more fair. So we're in a really interesting spot. There's a lot of listings like this. This one explicitly says it comes from China, but I think there's a lot of businesses where it doesn't say, but it's one of the first questions you're going to have to ask is, you know, where are the supply chains in this business?

Yeah, country of origin is now like number one on every single diligence list for every deal. Yep, yeah. Understanding that, but again, like every country doesn't even matter. China, like everything is so in flux right now, how do you underwrite anything? And that's why markets are just locking up because there's absolutely no certainty. Yeah, I agree. It's scary. So, okay. So in general, though, like tariffs aside, I think there's a lot to like about this business. I do too. So Heather, it sounds like this is going to be SBA. Well, it's going to be SBA to a point because the asking price here is 10 million bucks plus inventory. Yeah. Yeah.

but maybe you're a five million. Is the limit up to 10? What's the latest? No, we're hoping. We're hoping Congress will do that sometime in the next year. There's some good signs that that might happen. So I am hopeful. But right now it's still five,

but you've got a few banks that'll go up to eight because they'll do this $3 million, what we call Perry Pesu or companion loan. With a strong enough deal and a strong enough buyer, it really has to have a strong buyer for that. You could finance $8 million, five SBA, three with that same bank on a Perry Pesoo. sue basis. So you could potentially fit this. But no SBA bank will touch it right now because of

China. Yeah, but not because of the carve out because of the new SOP. The carve out is no longer a problem. Right. Even if it's a carve out, this could still be done, which is which is really good news too. Okay. Super interesting. So let's, it's hard to even talk about price because of the specter of tariffs, right? Assuming the tariff thing was not happening at all, how do you feel about 4.2 times plus inventory for this business. That sounds pretty good for what it is for the repeating revenue. I actually kind of, I think it's fairly priced, to be honest. I kind of think it is too.

I mean, it's fully priced, right, at 4.2. I think the thing that drives it is that 40 to 50% recurring revenue. Right. Side of the business that makes it more attractive. So I think it's, I think probably sell. The things that would scare me as a buyer, though, this is, I happen to know, because I've looked into it, this is a very competitive space. There are a ton of showerheads.

And I mean, you saw 10 filters, 15 filters, 20 filters, now add vitamins, right? Like, this, it's that type of space. And if you buy this business, right, you can't just keep selling your 20 filter skew and, like, fall asleep at the wheel. Right. You've got to introduce 22 layers next quarter, right? Or infrared light. Or whatever, right? Yeah.

Like, you've got to be, like, you've got to chase the market. and the innovation here, you just can't sit on your butt. And so that's something that worries me a little bit. And obviously, the thing that always worries me is platform dependence here, a little bit, 100% Amazon, which is just a little, makes you a little nervous. But I do think there's a buyer out there for this. Yeah. Thanks. Nice, nice, nice business.

Yep. Okay. Well, if you want to buy this business with a $5 million SBA loan, reach out to Heather, advise a cap. If you can help you do it, probably better than anyone else on the planet. So I hope you enjoyed this episode of Acquisitions Anonymous. If you like this one or you like other e-commerce deals, head over to our website, acqueu-anon.com.

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