Comments on: Success Saturday: Putting Together an eCommerce Site

By: Believe. Act. Achieve! - dcr Blogs dot Com » Blog Archive » Hodge Podge, or What to Say to a Hot Mom in Her Used Lingerie with Obama’s Headshot Ironed On

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 19:52:41 +0000

[...] “to set up e-commerce site, LLC or corp” - Finally, something normal! Too bad I’m not in the top 30 pages of Google for this. Someone must have been really desperate for this information! [...]

By: Believe. Act. Achieve! - dcr Blogs dot Com » Blog Archive » My Gosh, It’s Full of Words!

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 05:07:35 +0000

[...] thanks to everyone who has contributed their thoughts and additions to my “Putting Together an eCommerce Site” post. I want to put together something a little more comprehensive so I welcome any feedback [...]

By: Believe. Act. Achieve! - dcr Blogs dot Com » Blog Archive » Recognizing Spam Comments and Junk Sites

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 05:01:19 +0000

[...] such a way that it makes no logical sense but is stuffed with keywords. Take this excerpt from my Putting Together an eCommerce Site post: If you want to look into getting your own merchant account right at the start and handling [...]

By: Bobby Revell

Bobby Revell — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:29:53 +0000

Alright! Thanks Dan and thanks Terence! I believe I finally have the information I need to get started. I already have hosting and SSL, so now I’m looking into my EIN and so forth. I think that placing all your sites under a real business names with proper licensing looks so much more professional and the perception of your site is improved. Overall, I am actually excited about all this and have been reading a lot about LLC’s and s-corps. I think I’m now on the right track

By: dcr

dcr — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:18:31 +0000

Great link. Thanks for submitting it!

By: dcr

dcr — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:15:33 +0000

What issues did you have with SaleHoo? Was it the site itself, or the vendors on the site? As I understand it, you would be ordering directly from the wholesale vendors, and SaleHoo only offers you a directory of vendors.

By: dcr

dcr — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:13:40 +0000

There are special requirements for even LLCs that you need to follow, and that adds a level of complexity to running your business as one. I’ve also head the advice that it’s not cost-effective to go that route unless you are making a decent amount of money.

You can operate all your websites under a single business name. Or you can set up a company for each one. If you go the single business name route, you could operate under an umbrella of “Bobby Revell Ventures” or something like that.

In some states, you can also operate under a fictitious business name, so you could be Bobby Revell Ventures doing business as Revellian.com, if you wanted. You would have to file Revellian.com as a business name. Again, that’s something to check with someone local about.

By: Terence Chang

Terence Chang — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 19:41:10 +0000

To answer Bobby’s question about LLC.

Here is one good read.
http://www.powerhomebiz.com/vol136/structure.htm

S-Corp requires a lot more paper works, but it does has some good advantage over LLC. I felt that I am running a real business with s-corp.

By: Terence Chang

Terence Chang — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 19:25:33 +0000

Dan:

First of all, great job on putting together all the information. I think you miss out the open source shopping cart Zen-Cart.com, which I used to operate my online stores without any cost.

I was almost sign up WorldWideBrand. I just realized that you are paying for the services, which collect the information that can be found for FREE on the Internet. Please avoid SaleHoo, unless you want to handle dramatic amount of customer services for return.

To answer some of the questions in the comment. This is what I did to operate my online stores.
1. I got my EIN and started a S-Corporation. There are some tax advantages of S-Corp over LLC. Please read IRS web site about the difference on tax.

2. I have few online stores under one S-Corp. Doesn’t matter how much money you are making, please do yourself a favor not to use your own SSN for business. Get an EIN.

3. There are more tax saving advantage when running a small business as LLC or S-Corp.

3. I use Zen-Cart and ANHosting for my online stores. My total cost of my online store has been paid off by itself. The real cost is $70/year for SSL + $85 annual hosting fee.

4. I use PayPal for all my stores. Authorize.net is way too expensive for new e-commerce web sites. I can switch to Authorize.net with few click of mouse in the future.

5. 90% of my products are through dropshipping.

Here is my conclusion about running e-commerce stores myself.

1. Starting a small online business is the easiest part. They are just paper works.
2. Niche, Niche, Niche - A right niche will make you more money faster
3. Find a good suppliers - Don’t put eggs on one basket.
4. Traffic and conversion rate - Without a good marketing strategies, the best product won’t make a penny sale.
5. Customer services make differences.

By: Bobby Revell

Bobby Revell — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:49:30 +0000

If I get an EIN number, and start an LLC, any site or business will fall under the same company name? I’m assuming that once I establish an LLC, I can place as many individual sites under that singular umbrella. Are you an LLC? I have been told by several people that I don’t need to go that route unless I’m already making several thousand dollars per month, as it would be waste of time and money.

Right now, any money I make blogging is considered personal income and I do not have a business license. I think most bloggers do the same thing. It can be a little confusing, especially when you’re just starting out.