Yesterday I was asked what I thought about a dating website that was for sale over at ebay.co.uk.

Online dating is of course big business. In the USA, the online dating industry is said to be worth around US$500 million a year now and that figure is growing by the day. And according to an article in The Times from a few weeks ago, the market in the UK is currently worth around the £12 million mark and expected to rise to £47 million by 2008.

The market is dominated by big players like Match.com and DatingDirect.com, but there is still plenty of room for others to succeed in the market, particularly if they can find a niche to call their own.

Over at eBay I was hoping to find an online dating business for sale that had the potential to be one of the niche players of the future, but what I found was what they politely call in the trade a “cookie cutter”. In this case a dating website template that is being sold over and over again.

I don’t have anything against cookie cutter websites per se. But looking through the listings on ebay.co.uk there are dozens of them currently being sold, including quite a few dating ones, with prices ranging from 99p up to a few hundred pounds.

Obviously we are not talking about a great deal of money here. No need to call in the VCs to discuss funding at this stage anyway.

But what most people who are tempted to buy one of these ready made website businesses don’t know is that you can buy dating websites and hundreds of other turnkey internet businesses from a company called Dotcombuilder (affiliate link) for a flat fee of just US$79 (less than £50). In fact the website that I was asked to look at came straight out of Dotcombuilder’s portfolio of over 600 such ready to go website businesses.

So if it’s off the shelf websites that you are looking for, cut out the middle man and head straight for Dotcombuilder. As a member, you can create an unlimited amount of websites for either personal use or to resell. And if you fancied your chances in a crowded market, you could even put a few up for sale on eBay.

UPDATE: Just came across a white label solution for those looking to start an online dating agency. White Label Dating. Also check out Gordon Smith who has a lot of interesting insights to share regarding the online dating industry.