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Buy/sell websites with web3 escrow

Imagine you’ve built and grown a high-ranking website that generates $6K – $10K annual net profit. Now you want to sell it to make a new one. A quick look at Flippa reveals that high-ranking .com websites with a 7-character name and 2K page views a month may cost anywhere between $10K and $40K depending on multiple site metrics. Not the money you would want to lose, right?

Why is flipping websites still a problem?

Building and selling websites for profit can be tricky. Selling sites through marketplaces like Flippa you pay a hefty service fee (see details in the table below). Yet selling through forums or Facebook groups without a broker or middleman you risk losing 100%. 

Platform to buy/sell websitesFee(s)
Flippa10% success fee per sale +
$49 listing fee 
Empire Flippers15%
Motion Invest20%
FE International10% – 15%

Zenland escrow contracts walkthrough [screenshots]

With the escrow smart contracts, we built any sale or purchase is done under blockchain protection and without a middleman or hefty commissions. The service fee is 1.75% on sales below 10K. 

A sample case below illustrates what the actual process of selling or buying a website through the Zenland escrow contracts looks like. While this is a test case that has been executed on test networks for a demo, the process is no different for real cases executed on main networks.

Contract termsDetails
Contract participantsAndy the current owner (the seller),                     
Babu, the future owner (the buyer)
Object of salelevelup.com website
Due dateDecember 20, 2022 04:34
Selected networkGoerli Test Network
Agreed amount12 000 USDC
Buyer protection time24
Zenland fee$205 (paid by Andy)

Step 1. Andy logs in with Metamask wallet address (anonymous web3 login)

Don’t know how to use Metamask? Browse the Third Party Wallets category to learn more about alternative payments with cryptocurrency wallets.

How to buy or sell websites with Zenland: step1

Step 2. Andy adds an item to the profile and sends the link to Babu

To add an item:
1. Andy clicks “My Items” from the left panel
2. Clicks “Add Item”
3. Provides item name, description, delivery time, and buyer protection time. Then, sets the price, payment method, and currency. Finally marks a website delivery as a one-off product and allows pre-approved contract creation.
4. Shares the URL of the profile with Babu

Buy/sell websites with Zenland - Add your item by filling out the form
Buy or sell online with Zenland- Set the price, payment methods and currencies
How to buy or sell websites with Zenland: step 2

Step 3. Babu selects the item and approves the terms of purchase

Andy allowed both Ethereum and Binance testnets, so Andy can choose between the 2 networks and their tokens.

How to buy or sell websites with Zenland: step 3
How to buy or sell websites with Zenland: approve purchase terms

Step 4. Babu sends the contract to the blockchain and locks payment inside

Sending the contract to the blockchain, also known as contract deployment, is similar to entering data into the blockchain database. It gives the contract a permanent address where the contract (and payment inside it) is stored.

Read more about contract actions and contract states.

How to buy or sell websites with Zenland: step 4 deployment
How to buy or sell websites with Zenland: step 4 transfer

Step 5. Andy transfers website ownership and confirms the fulfillment

Buy/sell websites with Zenland - Site transfer to new owner at registrar

Meanwhile, Andy and Babu communicate via an anonymous chat linked to their escrow contract, a.k.a contract chat.

Buy and sell online with Zenland - Chat anonymously via Contract Chat
How to buy or sell websites with Zenland: step 5 Complete site transfer

Step 6. Babu inspects and releases payment from the contract

Once the website ownership transfer is complete, Babu has 24 hours (buyer protection time Babu and Andy agreed to in the terms) to inspect it and unlock payment from the contract. If unhappy about the purchase Babu can dispute it with Andy. More information about dispute resolution is under the Escrow Disputes category.

How to buy or sell websites with Zenland: step 6

Step 7. Andy and Babu rate and review each other

How to buy or sell websites with Zenland: step 7

Want to see for yourself?

Currently, we are giving $1 to new users. Once logged in you should see a $1 balance on your dashboard to fully cover the service fee for contracts worth $50 or less. All users (buyers & sellers) are welcome to try escrow smart contracts.

The transaction got stuck in the network. What can I do?

Although not common, this happens when the gas fee is lower than the actual gas in the network and when the network is congested. There are a few things you can do if your transaction is stuck.

a) Click the “Speed Up” button in the Metamask window. This way you will be able to offer a higher gas fee to execute the transaction. Alternatively, you can click “Cancel”, refresh the page, and repeat the transaction again.

b) Close the app to log in later and synchronize the approved transaction and your Contract Control interface by clicking the “Sync” button.

screen Sync button

c) Repeat the transaction again in 30 minutes, once the action button (“Deploy”, “Transfer”, “Complete”, etc.) becomes active. Note that this will not cancel the pending transaction but just override it. In other words, repeat it if you can’t wait for your first transaction to be executed (to then, sync it with the interface) and are ready to pay the gas fee for a new transaction.

How to add funds to my Zenland wallet?

Adding funds to a Zenland wallet is done through the form on the “My Wallet” page.

To get there you just click on the balance you see on your dashboard (Top Panel), or you can click the user icon on your right and select “My Wallet”  from the Menu.

Once there, you will see a form where you state the dollar equivalent for the amount you want to top up. There is no minimum or maximum and the only requirement is that it is enough to cover the Zenland fee displayed in your contract. 

For example, if the fee is $1.5 and is paid 50/50, you and the other party must both have at least $0.75 on your in-app wallets for the contract to be deployed.

Then, click the “Add to wallet” button to select the cryptocurrency you want to deposit. Unlike the escrow contracts themselves that receive, store, and release stablecoins, the wallet accepts altcoins and estimates their dollar value based on the network rates at that time. So you may choose USDC, DAI, or Bitcoin and other altcoins.

Once clicked, you receive a transaction address and the token amount that you copy-paste to the cryptocurrency wallet you are using (Metamask, Trustwallet, Binance, Exodus, etc.).

Initiated transactions will be detected by the app and display the message “Transaction detected. Waiting for the network confirmation.” 

As soon as the transaction is confirmed, funds appear in the wallet balance.

The buyer haven’t released escrow yet. What to do?

There are two things you can do to address this:

a) try to reach out to the seller via a contract chat to see whether or not the buyer has received the order, is unhappy with it, etc.

b) release the payment from the contract on your own. That is possible if 2 important conditions are met:

  • the buyer protection time has passed;
  • buyer has not opened a dispute;

If the buyer hasn’t released payment and has already opened a dispute (you can see a change in the contract state to “Disputed” in the chat), you can invite an Agent to resolve your case.

It is important that you tried to contact a buyer to resolve disagreements mutually. Neither you nor another party will be able to decide on how to go about the escrow payment afterward.

I haven’t received order and any response from the seller. What can I do?

There are situations when the seller may not be able to respond on time (health issues, business trips, etc.). If you haven’t received your order and the due date has already passed, you may open a dispute by clicking the “Dispute” button on the Contract Control page. 

Once the contract is in a disputed state, you should try to reach out to the seller via the contact chat to re-negotiate the conditions and discuss disagreements. It is up to you whether you want to wait for a few hours, days, or weeks for the seller to chat back.

If even after that you receive no response, you can escalate the dispute to Agent, a neutral third party who will be given full control over your case to decide what to do with the payment locked in the contract.

More on how the dispute escalation works with the Agent is here.

After release, will I get tokens to my Metamask address or Zenland account?

The payment locked up in the contract will be released directly to the seller’s wallet address entered in the contract terms. In other words, you receive payment to your Metamask address and not Zenland account. This can be verified via Etherscan, or another applicable blockchain explorer.

Your Zenland (in-app) wallet is only for the service fees for creating a contract and does not support any operations with the contract.

Read Zenland profile & wallet to learn about it in detail.  

The contract says that due date has expired. What can I do?

There are two types of expired contracts in Zenland escrow app: editable (A) and uneditable (B).

Contract A
Contract B

This distinction is made so that the two types can be easily identified and acted upon.

The contract is editable if one of the parties has not approved it yet but the due date has already passed.

In this case, the side that is yet to approve (let’s say, the seller) should first edit the due date before approval. An important thing to mention is that both parties can chat to mutually agree on the date before approval. After the contract has been approved none of the conditions can be changed at any point up until its execution.

Uneditable contracts are expired contracts that cannot be changed. This happens if after approval the buyer has not deployed the contract to the blockchain and the due date has passed. 

If both sides want to make a deal with each other and the contract is uneditable, they can create a new contract with mutually set conditions.

Who can see the reviews left after the contract is fulfilled?

The reviews are public and can be seen on your profile. Because the majority of users do not have usernames and assume the default “Anonymous” on their profile, reviews are associated with a specific MetaMask address used to log in. 

You can check your profile (or a friend’s profile) for reviews even without a login. 

A profile page URL should look like this:

https://app.zen.land/profile/metamask_address

Quick Tip If there are no reviews for a certain address this may be because the closed contracts did not have them. For example, if the buyer has not rated the seller.

I don’t trust anyone. Why would I trust your escrow contracts?

Zenland provides a simple interface so that users like you who are cautious when doing business with strangers can use smart contracts and blockchains instead of traditional human escrow. The idea is that you don’t have to trust anyone because the reviews can be bought and affiliates receive their commissions.

With Zenland, only buyers and sellers have access to contracts and can send blockchain requests on how to manage them (transfer and release escrow funds, for example).

Both sides can see all the transactions made with the contract address via a relevant network explorer like Etherscan or BCSscan. Proof that our escrow contracts and payment are decentralized and are stored on the blockchain and not on a private server/account like traditional escrow.

I don’t agree with contract terms. How can I reject the contract?

Technically you don’t reject the contract because you may either:

a) edit 4 important contract conditions: buyer protection time, due date, fee payer, and payment amount;
b) reach out to buyer/seller via the Contract Chat, decide on new terms, create another contract and approve it.

The other party will see changes made to these conditions in the Contract Chat and should approve them. If disagree, the terms can be edited again and again until both sides approve them.