ecommerce, where to start?

thaimeister

Hi all,

I'm in the very early stages of planning an online shop and looking for advice on where to start. I work full-time in sales for a national electrical wholesaler selling to trade, electrical contractors etc. I have an idea for an online shop which I want to run part-time alongside my full-time job. At first I plan to concentrate on selling a small specific range of high margin products to public, not contractors. Initially I don't want to hold stock as I plan to buy as and when orders are placed. Not dropshipping, but I'll buy from current suppliers which I use through my work but obviously through my own company. I'm not interested in going down the ebay route as I want a dedicated online store.

So I guess for starters I'd like more info on the following:-

1) What first? do I have to register a company first? if so would the company name be the name of the website? Limited or sole trader? Do I buy a domain name first?

2) What are good ecommerce providers to make it as simple as possible? Ideally I want to pay a monthly fee which will cover everything from the website template to billing etc. I've had a quick look at Shopify, ekmpowershop, bluepark etc but welcome other ideas.

Like I say its just an idea and at a very early stage so any feedback is most welcome.

Many Thanks

InsideInsurance

1) you have a lot of questions in there for just a single bullet point!

Do some numbers in terms of volumes and speak to a couple of local accountants, most do a free 30 minute session and will give you some basic advice.

If your doing it as a hobby most would say to start as a sole trader as it is the simplest route in and 100% possible for you to do without having to pay professionals.

If your going to have a high profit or it is a high risk operation then you may want to consider an Ltd for the benefits it gives you.

There is no need for the domain name to match however if it doesnt then for an Ltd you would need to have on your official documents and website ABC Ltd t/a WebsiteName.com and if you are a soul trader then Your Name t/a WebsiteName.com

Most Ltds want their company name and website to match and so its worth checking that both are available but there is no requirement to.


2) I am not a fan of turn key solutions but I know several that have given good report on EKM


3) Check your contract of employment as many will exclude you from having a second job in the same arena and whilst you say their B2B and you will be B2C it may be too close and you have to decide if youre jobs worth risking for it

thaimeister

3) Check your contract of employment as many will exclude you from having a second job in the same arena

This is my major stumbling block. My terms of employment state "You must not in any event: Set up in business which directly competes with any aspect of our business"

The risk of losing my current job probably outweighs what I would make from the site if I stuck with the original products I intended to sell. That effectlively puts an end to that but I'm still interestedin setting something up if I can find another product area to sell which isn't related to my work.

2) I am not a fan of turn key solutions but I know several that have given good report on EKM

The more research I do, the more bad comments I find about EKM. The most positive seem to be for platforms such as Magento Go

Thanks for your response. Looks like I'm going to have to have a bit of a rethink

Regards

InsideInsurance

Magneto, cubecart, NOPcommerce, zen cart, etc are all popular for ecommerce but these are predominately the type where you buy your hosting separately rather than the like of EKM which is a SAAS (software as a service) model. If Magneto offer a SAAS version it could be the case that others do too.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_shopping_cart_software for a comparison of most the common ones, any marked as Continuous/ SAAS in the 3rd and 4th column are the sort you are looking at.

nathand_2

thaimeister wrote: »

This is my major stumbling block. My terms of employment state "You must not in any event: Set up in business which directly competes with any aspect of our business"

Don't let that hold you back. Set it up in someone elses name, eg wife. There are plenty of distancing tricks you can use (especially in web related businesses) so this doesn't point to you.

gottohaveit

Hi, in terms of ecommerce providers, I have tried a number of them and they all have their good/bad points.

We have tried Tiger Commerce (now taken over by EKM)
EKM, Volusion, Magneto, Bluepark, Zen Cart, Open Cart

I can honestly say with hand on heart, the best system and easiest to manage is BluePark, they do a free 2 week test using all the tools available. After 2 weeks of playing you'll be itching to sign up and get started.

Good luck!

thaimeister

Thanks for all the comments guys.

Don't let that hold you back. Set it up in someone elses name, eg wife. There are plenty of distancing tricks you can use (especially in web related businesses) so this doesn't point to you.

I did think about putting it in the wife's name originally because of tax etc. Hmmm

EPL

I am also at the early stages of creating my own e-commerce site. Initially, I will be dropshipping products to see if I can generate enough interest and sales to justify buying stock in bulk and storing it. If it doesn't work then I am not left with a load of unwanted stock.

I done a lot of research into who to use and the one I have gone with is BluePark. Was very impressed with their two week trial that I signed up.

My website isn't up and running yet and won't be until about mid-November but I am very excited about it.

Keep updating this thread to let us know how you get on, or pm and we can discuss different issues with us both being new at it.

bangersnmash

I note what you say about ebay but, unless it's changed since I last looked, paypal, ebay's payments company, do a free shopping cart.

So in your position I'd probably start a dummy operation, right now, using that and maybe just a few books and cds and clothes and nick nacks around the house for the initial product lines. Just as a test piece.

This will give you some practise at loading up the cart and making decisions re post and packing and how to present the stuff and scan pictures or take photos or copy other pics and all sorts of variables.

It will also be the first cart that you evaluate regarding its functionality and what you want and need it to do. So you'll learn a lot from that straight away, just the nitty gritty of getting it started and up and running. Then when you look at other ones you'll have a bit of a frame of reference for understanding what they do and whether or not paypal can serve your needs or whether maybe in fact you need another better service.

For cheap .com and .co.uk domains 1and1.com are one of the cheapest companies. Generally about £2 or so per year for .com and £7 or whatever it is for two years of .co.uk Sometimes they have special offers even cheaper as well.

Probably get both the .com and the .co.uk as you don't want someone else using your name once you've chosen a name that's available and that you can live with. Obviously all the obvious and good names are taken so you may have to do some thinking and lots of looking them up till you find a decent one that's available.

Possibly also consider booking .info .net .tv .org and .org.uk etc with your name so as to make sure that noone else pops up using these ones with your name. But only do this if you want to be comprehensive about it. Just the .com and .co.uk is probably enough for kick off.

If you want to cut costs to the bone for a test operation then perhaps consider using free ones such .nr or .tk

For free stable ad free space have a look at atspace.com the big German company. Offhand I don't know how well a paypal shopping cart would fit with it, if at all, but even if it doesn't it still might be useful to have some aspects of your site using free space at atspace eg maybe customer reviews and a forum for your customers to chat about stuff and for you to talk with them and develop some community and talk about new lines and such like.

Re sole trader or limited company :

In broad terms a limited company can sometimes be of use for the limited liability so if something goes wrong you can liquidate the company without your assets and in particular your house, if you have one, getting dragged down with it.

Another use for incorporation is selling shares to raise finance.

A ltd co has a bit more kudos than sole trader, you look like you mean business.

You can also avoid tax if you only pay yourself a small wage, below the threshold, and take the rest in dividends. A lot of people do this and it's getting more popular, despite some of the adverse whinging in the rags about it. Bear in mind in this context that tax avoidance is legal and many people do it, it's tax evasion that is illegal and that you can get nicked for.

To do a ltd co you can do it yourself using Companies House downloads for the forms and supplying them the information, for just £20, you don't need to use a third party agent who will charge you £50 to £200 and who will often slow down the registration process for a week or three or even longer if they're useless and flap about. Co House have lots of help on their website then for further understanding of limited cos also have a read of the quite detailed and comprehensive pages about it at wikipedia.

A possible slight advantage of sole trader is that you're not registered at Companies House so if in fact your trading doesn't work out and you end up not making any profit then you don't particularly necessarily have to bother telling HMRC about your non event whereas with a ltd co you're supposed to declare what you've done.

Though also lots of people register lots of ltd cos all the time that either don't trade or hardly do any. So although possibly it may have tightened up in recent years but in the 1990s Companies House didn't use to chase up people who didn't file any accounts. Though technically you're supposed to get fined if you're late with your accounts, similar as with HMRC itself.

Blah blah blah. That's enough for now, hope there might be something of use in it for you. Good luck. Let us know what you decide and how you get on.