Employed and starting own business (import/resell) - few questions

TripleAce

Hi,

I am currently employed by a company working 9-5 and I am in the process to start my own side business (completely unrelated to what I do in my days job). I will be importing items from outside the EU and reselling initially on EBay/Amazon and then drive the traffic to my own online shop(s).
In the last couple of months I put a lot of time/effort learning the best ways to operate this business (and I still have a lot to learn) and ordered my first sample a couple of weeks ago to get started and get familiar with the full end-to-end process - I am not worrying too much about taxation etc. at the moment, as I basically haven't started selling anything yet and don't want bureaucracy to slow down the initial growth of the business, however in a couple of months time I want to obviously do things properly, meet up with a Tax Accountant, set up a company LTD company (mainly because I want to keep personal finances separated from business finances), pay all the taxes I have to pay, etc. etc.

For now I have a few questions to ask, and your expert advice would be much appreciated, so I can have a high-level idea on how to handle potential issues coming up.

1) How would my earning with the LTD company impact my current salary? Will they be completely separated? Also, even though the business I am setting up has zero impact on my current job and it is totally unrelated (I work as PM in IT Services), I would prefer my employer not to know about it - will he be able to see from payslips, etc somehow?

2) From here: http://www.dutycalculator.com/country-guides/Import-duty-taxes-when-importing-into-ireland/ , just as an example, if I import some goods (with value 150€) and I pay let's say 23% VAT and 10% Duty, will I be able to claim that 23% VAT back under an LTD company? Or am I getting this wrong?

3) From here: http://blog.sage.ie/blog/index.php/sole-trader-limited-company/
Setting up an LTD is "Free with Revenue Commissioners but about €300 to set up company with CRO" -what is the difference?

4) The 12.5% corporation tax is on profits (revenue minutes expenses) or on revenue?

5) Do I need to give myself a "salary" or can I do without it? I won't be hiring anybody and will run the company from home delivering items myself before 9am in the morning and working on the rest after 9-5 work, so all profits should technically be mine, but I am not sure this is how it works?

6) I was thinking of opening a separate bank account, paypal account, credit card, etc. etc. to keep my business finances tidy and separated from my personal finances, would you have any advice in this regard, like for example a bank that has special offers for business owners, etc. etc.?

7) The plan is to sell across Ireland and across the EU either delivering the items directly or using fullfillment centres (I still need to figure out cost in doing so, etc.) - for sure at the beginning I will deliver the items from Ireland. Is this ok? I hope I don't need different VAT numbers for different countries? Stock will be kept on a spare bedroom at home for now

8) I am not really plan to do dropshipping for now as margins are pretty small, but it may be something I may look at in the future to test out some products. Is this actually legal in Ireland? Taxation would be standard as per any LTD company, or would you not need to establish a company at all?

9) I may be branding some products, is there any special regulation around it that I should be aware compared to buying existing brands and resell?

10) I live in Bray, would you have any tax accountant to suggest in my area? Initially I would just like to setup a 1-hour meeting to go through a few questions/details, if you have anyone to recommend it would be much appreciated.

Sorry for all these questions and thank you in advance for your help.

jimmii

I am currently employed by a company working 9-5 and I am in the process to start my own side business (completely unrelated to what I do in my days job). I will be importing items from outside the EU and reselling initially on EBay/Amazon and then drive the traffic to my own online shop(s).
In the last couple of months I put a lot of time/effort learning the best ways to operate this business (and I still have a lot to learn) and ordered my first sample a couple of weeks ago to get started and get familiar with the full end-to-end process - I am not worrying too much about taxation etc. at the moment, as I basically haven't started selling anything yet and don't want bureaucracy to slow down the initial growth of the business, however in a couple of months time I want to obviously do things properly, meet up with a Tax Accountant, set up a company LTD company (mainly because I want to keep personal finances separated from business finances), pay all the taxes I have to pay, etc. etc.

For now I have a few questions to ask, and your expert advice would be much appreciated, so I can have a high-level idea on how to handle potential issues coming up.

You have to think about tax straight away don't go leaving it until later and then trying to play catch up get it sorted now its an important thing to understand!

1) How would my earning with the LTD company impact my current salary? Will they be completely separated? Also, even though the business I am setting up has zero impact on my current job and it is totally unrelated (I work as PM in IT Services), I would prefer my employer not to know about it - will he be able to see from payslips, etc somehow?

Your tax liability will be your combined income from your job and any drawings from the company.

Make sure that there is nothing written into your contract about having other jobs.

2) From here: http://www.dutycalculator.com/country-guides/Import-duty-taxes-when-importing-into-ireland/ , just as an example, if I import some goods (with value 150€) and I pay let's say 23% VAT and 10% Duty, will I be able to claim that 23% VAT back under an LTD company? Or am I getting this wrong?

If you are VAT reg'd then yes you can claim that VAT you pay back on those imports.

3) From here: http://blog.sage.ie/blog/index.php/sole-trader-limited-company/
Setting up an LTD is "Free with Revenue Commissioners but about €300 to set up company with CRO" -what is the difference?

Revenue collects tax CRO is the central repository of public statutory information on Irish companies and business names you register with both. The CRO registration is basically where you are creating the company.

4) The 12.5% corporation tax is on profits (revenue minutes expenses) or on revenue?

Its on profits if it was on revenue there wouldn't be many companies left!

5) Do I need to give myself a "salary" or can I do without it? I won't be hiring anybody and will run the company from home delivering items myself before 9am in the morning and working on the rest after 9-5 work, so all profits should technically be mine, but I am not sure this is how it works?

You don't have to pay yourself a salary but there's not much point setting up a company to not pay yourself! Its only retained profits that are at the 12.5% how much tax you pay on any drawings you take (salary) will depend on what your income is from your job.

Doing deliveries yourself seems crazy and even more so doing deliveries before 9am not sure how much people are going to appreciate that seems a bit early! How much time have you put aside for these deliveries?

6) I was thinking of opening a separate bank account, paypal account, credit card, etc. etc. to keep my business finances tidy and separated from my personal finances, would you have any advice in this regard, like for example a bank that has special offers for business owners, etc. etc.?

Definitely open separate accounts. You should get free banking for a year with most banks the fees are pretty high when that ends but you can always switch banks.

7) The plan is to sell across Ireland and across the EU either delivering the items directly or using fullfillment centres (I still need to figure out cost in doing so, etc.) - for sure at the beginning I will deliver the items from Ireland. Is this ok? I hope I don't need different VAT numbers for different countries? Stock will be kept on a spare bedroom at home for now

There are limits to how much you can sell in other countries before you have to register for VAT there if you're getting to those levels you would definitely be wanting to use an accountant at that stage at least.

8) I am not really plan to do dropshipping for now as margins are pretty small, but it may be something I may look at in the future to test out some products. Is this actually legal in Ireland? Taxation would be standard as per any LTD company, or would you not need to establish a company at all?

Who fulfills the order doesn't really matter from a taxation pov. Only downside of doing that is you obviously don't have direct control on how things are being packaged.

9) I may be branding some products, is there any special regulation around it that I should be aware compared to buying existing brands and resell?

Will the branding name be the same as the company name? If you are using a different trading name then look to register that too.

10) I live in Bray, would you have any tax accountant to suggest in my area? Initially I would just like to setup a 1-hour meeting to go through a few questions/details, if you have anyone to recommend it would be much appreciated.

Can't help with that i'm afraid.

All the questions really suggest you would want to be talking to an accountant before you do anything further!

TripleAce

WOW, first of all thank you very much for taking the time to answer all these questions! Absolutely brilliant!
Regarding point# 5 I did not express myself properly, I meant that I a going for a trip to the post office myself, not that I deliver to the end customers - I would go crazy after a week otherwise

My only doubt is regarding the drawings you mentioned. My currently day job salary is 52k/year, so I am paying up to 20% until a certain point, and then 40% for the remainder.
Would this mean that on top of the 12.5% tax on company profits I would need to pay 40%? For example, is I profit 100k this year (this is not going to happen but it is just to make calculations easy), I would get to keep only around 45k-50k of these profits?

I don't really need the company profits to live, so I can just re-invest them to grow, and eventually if one day I earn enough with this business (plan is within 2 years) quit my day job and focus on the business full time. Having to pay an additional 40% would be a bit of a killer, however if this is the only option I would simply try to re-invest as much as possible in order to sacrifice some short term profits but put myself in a position to maximize profits once I will be full time on this business. Would this be reasonable or am I missing something important?

Thank you again, as you can see from my questions I am new to this, so expert advice is always welcomed!

jimmii

TripleAce wrote: »

WOW, first of all thank you very much for taking the time to answer all these questions! Absolutely brilliant!
Regarding point# 5 I did not express myself properly, I meant that I a going for a trip to the post office myself, not that I deliver to the end customers - I would go crazy after a week otherwise

My only doubt is regarding the drawings you mentioned. My currently day job salary is 52k/year, so I am paying up to 20% until a certain point, and then 40% for the remainder.
Would this mean that on top of the 12.5% tax on company profits I would need to pay 40%? For example, is I profit 100k this year (this is not going to happen but it is just to make calculations easy), I would get to keep only around 45k-50k of these profits?

I don't really need the company profits to live, so I can just re-invest them to grow, and eventually if one day I earn enough with this business (plan is within 2 years) quit my day job and focus on the business full time. Having to pay an additional 40% would be a bit of a killer, however if this is the only option I would simply try to re-invest as much as possible in order to sacrifice some short term profits but put myself in a position to maximize profits once I will be full time on this business. Would this be reasonable or am I missing something important?

Thank you again, as you can see from my questions I am new to this, so expert advice is always welcomed!

I did think doing deliveries your self sounded mad alright!

Regarding the tax if you set up as an LTD then it is a separate legal entity to yourself so any profits the company makes are taxed separately from your own at the reduced corp rate if you took all that 100k as drawings then it would be taxed at the high personal rate of tax.

Given the two revenue streams its definitely going to be worth your while going through it in detail with an accountant to work out what is going to be the most tax efficient over the next 4-5 years given your expected turnover as retaining profits isn't always going to the most efficient if it just results in your drawing it in a couple of years anyway as you essentially get double taxed.

Avatar MIA

TripleAce wrote: »

I don't really need the company profits to live

That's the best thing I've heard so far.

Can I ask, what makes you think you'd make a good entrepreneur? What's driving you to start this business. Is it simply because you don't like the day job?

What skills do you think you bring to this endeavour that will allow you to generate a space for yourself in the market or are the products you are wholesaling unique in someway (before your self brand?)

TripleAce

Avatar MIA wrote: »

That's the best thing I've heard so far.

Can I ask, what makes you think you'd make a good entrepreneur? What's driving you to start this business. Is it simply because you don't like the day job?

What skills do you think you bring to this endeavour that will allow you to generate a space for yourself in the market or are the products you are wholesaling unique in someway (before your self brand?)

Hi,

I actually love my day job, it is what I always wanted to do and allows my a lot flexibility (I work from my home office full time), don't waste time commuting, etc. so I have a lot more free time after work and can stay up until late at night doing my own things without having to worry about having to wake up early in the morning. The fact is that I don't see myself don't this for the next 30 years until retirement, working for someone else to get that 3% pay increase every year is not what I am planning to do in the long term, I want to push myself towards something more challenging and my ultimate goal would be in 5-7 years from now to have a fully automated passive income and retire young. When I say "passive" I mean I would still work a couple of hours/day for admin work/seeking new opportunities, etc, but 95% of the business will be automated.

Back in January I started working on a plan, I spent a couple of months learning to code html/css, got familiar with simple programs like Wordpress and try to get as much knowledge as I could on how to monetize website to provide passive income. I have built 3 websites, monetized them with Adsense and Amazon Associates and I currently spend about 30 minutes/day keeping them going (adding new content, updating facebook pages, etc) - income from these is really low though, as unless you have a huge audience (ie. boards.ie for example) it's hard to get serious money out of advertising and rather than build a few more of those I have decided to go for a change of strategy and sell actual products. This was not what I wanted to do initially as I only wanted to sell online advertisement or services and not to have an actual stock to have to look after, in order to be able to work from wherever I am in the world, however thanks for fullfillment centers this issue will be sorted in future.
I bumped into a thread on another forum (a american forums specialized on building businesses/create passive income, etc and in this case importing items and re-selling on Amazon/Ebay), I spent the past month learning the process, how to choose products to import/resell, how to be competitive on the market, how to select suppliers, etc - I placed my first sample order and I am waiting for the products to arrive and start selling, initially only on eBay until I get familiar with the end-to-end process, and then later on Amazon (I read Amazon is very strict and don't want to risk to have my selling account banned straight away for some naive mistake due to lack of experience.
I have already another 4-5 products in the pipeline and will order them soon. After the first few week I will add Amazon and once I have setup my LTD company (which will probably happen 2-3 months from now) I will start selling on my own site (I have already setup the layout, just need to add items/prices, etc). On eBay/Amazon I will sell products on different niche, then I plan to create 1 website for each niche and hopefully have a good number of products to sell in each. I will generate traffic via Adwords and by sending discounts along with the products sold via eBay to trying to bring my eBay customers to buy to my own shop and ultimately have full control rather than depending on eBay/Amazon and pray they don't close my account from one day to another as I heard it often happens.
At the beginning I will try to ensure to offer service like free/fast delivery, and if needed keep prices lower that I would like in order to earn good feedbacks/reputation until I become a Best Seller - key if to sell and get customers to buy regularly from me to then drive them to my own site.
Product selection is really key though, I am spending quite a lot of time playing around with Terapeak and find it great so far, along with other tools.

Branding is not something I was too interested on to be honest, but apparently it is pretty simple to get your own brands on generic products, so I will try and see how it goes - I am obviously not planning to sell my own branded products, but mix them with already known products and sell them at lower price initially, or send out some sample along with an order of similar products to see if customers start buying my own brand instead and give me even more control.

I expect to make a lot of mistakes here and there, but I got to start from somewhere. Nowadays we are really lucky to live in the internet era and can find so much info about everything online to educate ourselves that pretty much everything can be done with a bit of persistence.

TripleAce

Received my first sample this morning, pretty excited to get started
Unfortunately (hope wife is not reading) we will be away on holidays from Friday until the end of the month and won't be able to start putting the items up for sale until I come back as I wouldn't be able to fast-deliver them, but I guess I can use a bit more time to search for other products to add

I have a couple of questions, maybe you would be able to advise.

1) On the DHL package I don't see quoted the value of the product. I know under 150€ product-value no VAT/Duty is applicable, but how do they know the value of the product is it is not written? Should I ask the seller to quote it? (I paid for this deliver 97$ including product cost and delivery).

2) I know in some countries (USA for example) the post office gives away boxes/envelopes for free (can only be used with US Mail obviously) - Is the same in Ireland? Or should I purchase postage supplies myself? Any suggestion where can I find cheap postage supplies? I was thinking to get them on eBay, but maybe there is a cheaper/fastest way to get the locally?

Thank you for your help!

jimmii

Normally there is a value written on the front if you're ordering from China be aware that it is your responsibility to ensure the correct value is being written on it.

For packaging An Post is pretty expensive you are better off buying it in bulk online works out quite a bit cheaper. There are a good few based in Ireland worth looking through a few for what you need as the prices can vary a good bit.

Mrs OBumble

1) How would my earning with the LTD company impact my current salary? Will they be completely separated? Also, even though the business I am setting up has zero impact on my current job and it is totally unrelated (I work as PM in IT Services), I would prefer my employer not to know about it - will he be able to see from payslips, etc somehow?

You need to register for Income Tax.

At some point, a nice person from Revenue may suggest adjusting your tax credits so that the PAYE system takes some of the tax that you would be due to pay on your other income from your salary each month.

If you agree to this, then a smart HR / payroll person could say "Ahh, TripleAce isn't using all his tax credits for our job, he must either have another source of income, or owe money to Revenue that he has agreed to pay them via our payroll".

They don't find out anything about the source of your "other income" - for all they know, it could be foreign rental income or various other things. Also, if you wife isn't working and you are joint-assessed, it would be even harder for your Payroll/HR to spot what was going on. So I tend to think it's pretty safe so assume they won't work out out - but then again, I just decline Revenue's offer and manage the tax on my other income totally myself.


Re some of your other questions - hire an accountant ASAP. Issues you need to plan for include VAT registration, and also preliminary tax in whatever year your side income trips the threshold for this.

The way I understand things, your options for tax are:
1) Pay yourself a salary (on which you pay tax at the appropriate rate given the rest of your earnings ... which amounts to 51% for you). But your salary is one of the expenses for the company, and company tax is levied on Profit (ie Income minus expenses) only. So no company tax is paid on the salary.
OR
2) Don't pay yourself a salary. Instead, leave the money in the company, meaning that company tax is paid of the full amount of profit that the company makes. The company builds up cash reserves, and may choose to use them to pay you a salary in a later year (eg the first year that you work full-time in it). You will need to pay personal income tax on that salary in the year you receive it. On the surface, this sounds crazy because you would be paying tax twice on the salary. But if the company paid it to you in a year when you didn't have much other income, then your personal tax rate for that income might be very low, meaning that the overall amount of tax paid is lower than it would be if you had paid yourself in an earlier year.

Now, that's just what I've come to understand, and it's fairly simplistic and glosses over a lot. And I'm not an accountant, so may have it wrong.

TripleAce

Hi,

Mrs OBumble thank you very much for your post and info. My wife also works, I will follow your advice and go to see an accountant as soon as I return from holidays to get things clarified and ensure I follow the right steps!

I actually read my company contract and nowhere is written that I can't have a second job/company, as long as it is not for a competitor or in any way competing with the company or interfering with company interests, so I guess I am ok there. I still prefer them not to know as it is really none of their business what I do in my free time tbh.

Thanks again!

Joseph

Hey, not sure if has been mentioned anywhere but when you pay yourself from your company you will pay full PRSI and lose PAYE tax credit (don't know if this applies to your PAYE tax credit for other main job, probably not)

In short: pay an accountant to figure this stuff for you, it'll get messy with different incomes etc. Will not cost much with an account, couple hundred.

TripleAce

Joseph wrote: »

Hey, not sure if has been mentioned anywhere but when you pay yourself from your company you will pay full PRSI and lose PAYE tax credit (don't know if this applies to your PAYE tax credit for other main job, probably not)

In short: pay an accountant to figure this stuff for you, it'll get messy with different incomes etc. Will not cost much with an account, couple hundred.

Hi Joseph, yes all these information are getting a bit overwhelming, I will certainly go and see an accountant very soon to figure how to best approach this.

TripleAce

I was wondering if somebody knows a comparison side for the different couriers shipping to Ireland?

My first sample was 2kg and cost me 47$ with DHL (from China), is DHL usually the best/cheapest option or should I check with Fedex, etc? I see to get an estimate from the DHL site I need to be registered....
Also, if I open an account with DHL for example, will I get better rates for frequent deliveries?

Next delivery will be around 8kg and the seller advised that will be around 120$ shipping cost, which I am fine with but obviously if I can find a better rate I would be happy, even because in the long run it could work out a lot of money saved....

Thank you in advance!

TripleAce

I resume this thread in order not to start a new one. I started selling my first product on eBay and did pretty well, however due to eBay limitations I could only sell 10 on the first month, now my limit has increased to 75 which is a bit better.
I went to an accountant and I am in the process of setting up an LTD (it should be ready at some stage this week) and got all my questions answered, which was very good.

In the last few days though, as I was searching for suppliers to add new products I got to the conclusion that pretty much all branded items coming from China are fakes (with very few exceptions), so as I am not in this to sell fakes or doing anything illegal I have decided that I will be branding all my products from start.
Now as I will start adding products to my E-Commerce site (not ready yet, will be when the company is setup), I am afraid that my shop will be very empty, as I will only have 4-5 products probably on sale, so my idea was to add some famous brand product in my shop at a higher price than normal, and then if I get to sell one of those I will just order it from a competitor and deliver it to the customer - I won't be making profits on the product but I will attract customer to my site hoping that they will be buying my own branded products (which hopefully will expand with time, as the other known brands will decrease).

My question is: is this legal? Can I just let's say put "Nike" shoes for sell on my shop (just an example as I won't be selling shoes) and sell it? Or do I need to be an official seller for that brand?
Also, would you know if it is possible to contact Irish wholesellers (of official brands) and ask them to drop-ship items for me if I sell them in my shop - in take case I would be able to make a little profit also at least.

Thank you for your help!

jimmii

A shop in Limerick selling Abercrombie and Fitch had their stock taken after A&F took them to court. That's the only time I have ever heard it happen though. I think with the vast majority of brands its not going to be a problem.

There are sites like wholesaleclearance.co.uk where you can pick up some legit branded stuff that is end of line. Every now and then they have some superb stuff I got two lots of boots that I was able to sell in no time the same boots were in shops at €215 and I was selling them for €99. Most of it is crap but there is the odd gem among the muck!

Droppshipping isn't something most wholesalers offer you will have to contact them to find out if its a service they offer. Some wholesalers may not supply you without a physical shop as well so you may run into that too.

antoinolachtnai

These major brands operate controlled distribution chains. This means they like to control who sells their goods. They like to control the price and they like to control the environment.

They don't always get to do this, but in general, they do.

There is a lot of law in the area. It is a complex field.

In general, big brands are probably not interested in having you as a seller in any form. That is why your strategy for filling out your store will be difficult or expensive or both.

TripleAce

Thank you all! So if I buy some good from a wholeseller wouldn't automatically mean that I am allowed to sell them? Do I need to contact the company/manufacturer directly to get some sort of approval?

jimmii

TripleAce wrote: »

Thank you all! So if I buy some good from a wholeseller wouldn't automatically mean that I am allowed to sell them? Do I need to contact the company/manufacturer directly to get some sort of approval?

If approval is needed then the wholesaler will take care of what you need to do. Most want a little bit of information and often that is just an agreement that you won't be selling their products using online market places so not sure how well it will go if you say you aren't going to do that and then do! We've only gone through one serious application process where we had to do a full write up on the business and how we intended to use and promote the product and send pictures of the shop inside and out. Apparently only around 10% actually got approved I can't imagine many are that tough but they are out there. Unsurprisingly it is by far our biggest revenue generator!

TripleAce

Thank you jimmii!

I didn't actually check the UK Wholesale route until now as I was solely focused on importing from China, however I may re-consider now as I just want to sell either original brands or my own brand. I googled UK Wholesale and a new world opened up
This site for example is a directory of UK wholesalers http://www.thewholesaler.co.uk/ and the websites/companiers seems genuine. Would you say that whatever is on sale is genuine branded item and no fakes?
Also if the wholesaler is ok to sell it to me without asking questions, I could sell that item on Amazon/eBay without breaking any rule, right?

_Brian

TripleAce wrote: »

Thank you jimmii!

I didn't actually check the UK Wholesale route until now as I was solely focused on importing from China, however I may re-consider now as I just want to sell either original brands or my own brand. I googled UK Wholesale and a new world opened up
This site for example is a directory of UK wholesalers http://www.thewholesaler.co.uk/ and the websites/companiers seems genuine. Would you say that whatever is on sale is genuine branded item and no fakes?
Also if the wholesaler is ok to sell it to me without asking questions, I could sell that item on Amazon/eBay without breaking any rule, right?

Remember just because someone says they are a wholesaler doesn't mean they aren't selling knock off items. Research them fully and get samples.

jimmii

TripleAce wrote: »

Thank you jimmii!

I didn't actually check the UK Wholesale route until now as I was solely focused on importing from China, however I may re-consider now as I just want to sell either original brands or my own brand. I googled UK Wholesale and a new world opened up
This site for example is a directory of UK wholesalers http://www.thewholesaler.co.uk/ and the websites/companiers seems genuine. Would you say that whatever is on sale is genuine branded item and no fakes?
Also if the wholesaler is ok to sell it to me without asking questions, I could sell that item on Amazon/eBay without breaking any rule, right?

As Brian says you still need to do a bit of background on people just because they have a .co.uk doesn't mean they are a legit UK company its a lot easier to get one of those than a .ie. There aren't really a huge number of wholesalers here most are dealt with from UK offices some have token registered offices here but deliveries still come from the UK.

Ush1

Hi TripleAce,

I'm actually on a remarkably similar path to yourself and I'm sure reading the same blog site on passive income.

Just out of interest, what was the traffic like to your sites that the income was poor through adsense/amazon affiliate?

TripleAce

Ush1 wrote: »

Hi TripleAce,

I'm actually on a remarkably similar path to yourself and I'm sure reading the same blog site on passive income.

Just out of interest, what was the traffic like to your sites that the income was poor through adsense/amazon affiliate?

It really depends on how active I am on Facebook, usually less than 50 vistis/day even when I am active - I initially used facebook ads to get a little audience (just spent about 20€ for each site just to get me started) and then move it from there. I have between 600 and 1000 likes on each group, very little.
I still have those 3 sites (they are all just about 3-4 months old), but I really spent little time updating contents/involving people via facebook group as the ads click were so little I decided to cut the losses and spend my time in a most useful way (ie. trying to start a proper business). I may resume them one day if I find a way to monetize them by selling products (I have Amazon associate products on one but never sold anything and commission to start is only 4% anyway), for now they are kind of parked (I update content once per week). They are video sites, so don't really necessarily need new contents all the time, even though it would be good to have. Or I may even sell them one day, at least for time spend uploading content, etc. should be worth a few hundred € each I guess.

TripleAce

jimmii wrote: »

As Brian says you still need to do a bit of background on people just because they have a .co.uk doesn't mean they are a legit UK company its a lot easier to get one of those than a .ie. There aren't really a huge number of wholesalers here most are dealt with from UK offices some have token registered offices here but deliveries still come from the UK.

Yep, I don't really mind whether items are coming from Ireland or the UK, just really want to ensure they are legit and not fakes. They just need to fill the shop, I won't spend any money on advertising for them obviously as the target is to advertise my own brand.
I found a couple of interesting forums dedicated to wholesalers today thanks to your tips above that I will check out... will also ask these question to my accountant when I meet him later this week or early next week, just trying to explore every possible option at the moment.

I started looking at the positive side of this, the harder it is to get this thing done the more potential competitors get turned off/give up in the process, so whatever happen there is always a positive!

Ush1

TripleAce wrote: »

It really depends on how active I am on Facebook, usually less than 50 vistis/day even when I am active - I initially used facebook ads to get a little audience (just spent about 20€ for each site just to get me started) and then move it from there. I have between 600 and 1000 likes on each group, very little.
I still have those 3 sites (they are all just about 3-4 months old), but I really spent little time updating contents/involving people via facebook group as the ads click were so little I decided to cut the losses and spend my time in a most useful way (ie. trying to start a proper business). I may resume them one day if I find a way to monetize them by selling products (I have Amazon associate products on one but never sold anything and commission to start is only 4% anyway), for now they are kind of parked (I update content once per week). They are video sites, so don't really necessarily need new contents all the time, even though it would be good to have. Or I may even sell them one day, at least for time spend uploading content, etc. should be worth a few hundred € each I guess.

Is the product you're selling going to be related?

Could use those sites to route traffic to your product perhaps.

jimmii

TripleAce wrote: »

Yep, I don't really mind whether items are coming from Ireland or the UK, just really want to ensure they are legit and not fakes. They just need to fill the shop, I won't spend any money on advertising for them obviously as the target is to advertise my own brand.
I found a couple of interesting forums dedicated to wholesalers today thanks to your tips above that I will check out... will also ask these question to my accountant when I meet him later this week or early next week, just trying to explore every possible option at the moment.

I started looking at the positive side of this, the harder it is to get this thing done the more potential competitors get turned off/give up in the process, so whatever happen there is always a positive!

Yeh was just mentioning it in case you assumed you would be able to find a load of Irish wholesalers! Its worth factoring in currency conversion into your plan especially at the moment while €:£ rate is fairly active.

TripleAce

Ush1 wrote: »

Is the product you're selling going to be related?

Could use those sites to route traffic to your product perhaps.

No, my first ecommerce shop is not related to the existing sites, the 3 video sites are respectively about: football - cats/dogs - music of the 90s. Building those sites has been a good exercise for me however, as I got familiar with wordpress, etc. and can now build/maintain almost everything I need myself without having to outsource it (unless I need some complicated coding, in that case I would hire a developer), so I don't regret the time spent on them.

My plan however is to open several shops in different niches in the coming months/years, but want to do things properly so will obviously do one at the time and hopefully the following will be easier as I learn from mistakes along the way.

RUDOLF289

TripleAce wrote: »

Thank you all! So if I buy some good from a wholeseller wouldn't automatically mean that I am allowed to sell them? Do I need to contact the company/manufacturer directly to get some sort of approval?

If you buy goods within the EU there is absolutely no restriction on what you can do with the goods you have bought. As advised previously, there is no intellectual property rights that the brand holder (s) or distributor (s) can protect. Only if you source branded goods from outside the EU can brand holders and official distributors protect their rights.

It's not very complicated.

RUDOLF289

jimmii wrote: »

A shop in Limerick selling Abercrombie and Fitch had their stock taken after A&F took them to court. That's the only time I have ever heard it happen though. I think with the vast majority of brands its not going to be a problem.

There are sites like wholesaleclearance.co.uk where you can pick up some legit branded stuff that is end of line. Every now and then they have some superb stuff I got two lots of boots that I was able to sell in no time the same boots were in shops at €215 and I was selling them for €99. Most of it is crap but there is the odd gem among the muck!

Droppshipping isn't something most wholesalers offer you will have to contact them to find out if its a service they offer. Some wholesalers may not supply you without a physical shop as well so you may run into that too.

The A&F case related to product that was imported from outside the EU. Because the shop in Limerick bypassed the official distributor in Ireland, the brand holder (A&F) and the distributor were able to protect their intellectual property rights.

Once goods are on the open market in the EU and brought in through official channels or with the permission of the brand holder and the official distributor from outside the EU, the intellectual property is deemed exhausted.

Cheers,
RUDOLF289

TripleAce

RUDOLF289 wrote: »

If you buy goods within the EU there is absolutely no restriction on what you can do with the goods you have bought. As advised previously, there is no intellectual property rights that the brand holder (s) or distributor (s) can protect. Only if you source branded goods from outside the EU can brand holders and official distributors protect their rights.

It's not very complicated.

Thanks Rudolf, yep I confirmed this with my accountant when I met him to setup the company and as you said he confirm I can buy from a UK/Irish wholesaler and resell without issue. I may even dropship some items, don't know yet - I am mainly focus and branding the product I am in the process of ordering at the moment.

I also have another question, this is really important and something I need to sort out asap. Basically my problem is that I am out of the country (for either work or pleasure) about 2 months per year, and I can't just stop selling/shipping when I am away as apart from the money lost the customer experience would be ridiculous if I can't ship items out for like 2 weeks in a row while I am away and would ruin the company reputation and lose customers, so I would like to use a fulfillment centre.
I was obviously thinking to use Amazon FBA for the items I will sell on Amazon, however I was thinking about using a local Irish distributor for item I sell directly from my online store and from eBay.
Would you know how much would they usually charge? I guess it is a per-sale fee and a fee per cubical fee my items occupy, right? Also would you know if these fulfillment centre can be used on a temporary basis only, for example when I know I have to go abroad I bring them the products, give instructions on how to fulfill my orders and when I return collect the products in stock and take them home? Any good/not too expensive one to advise?
Note that my initial stock won't be too big and the items are small, so can easily fit everything in a car and bring it back and forth as needed.

ironclaw

TripleAce wrote: »

I also have another question, this is really important and something I need to sort out asap. Basically my problem is that I am out of the country (for either work or pleasure) about 2 months per year, and I can't just stop selling/shipping when I am away as apart from the money lost the customer experience would be ridiculous if I can't ship items out for like 2 weeks in a row while I am away and would ruin the company reputation and lose customers, so I would like to use a fulfillment centre.
I was obviously thinking to use Amazon FBA for the items I will sell on Amazon, however I was thinking about using a local Irish distributor for item I sell directly from my online store and from eBay.
Would you know how much would they usually charge? I guess it is a per-sale fee and a fee per cubical fee my items occupy, right? Also would you know if these fulfillment centre can be used on a temporary basis only, for example when I know I have to go abroad I bring them the products, give instructions on how to fulfill my orders and when I return collect the products in stock and take them home? Any good/not too expensive one to advise?
Note that my initial stock won't be too big and the items are small, so can easily fit everything in a car and bring it back and forth as needed.

Employ a trustworthy college student? Pay them their mileage and have them sort out delivery's / basic admin. Would most certainly be the cheapest option as I'm sure (Myself included back in the day) would snap up an opportunity for some cash after hours.

TripleAce

ironclaw wrote: »

Employ a trustworthy college student? Pay them their mileage and have them sort out delivery's / basic admin. Would most certainly be the cheapest option as I'm sure (Myself included back in the day) would snap up an opportunity for some cash after hours.

I guess "trustworthy" is the problem, but for sure it could be an option. I am currently only selling on eBay so I can take my products down whenever I go on holidays, however I can't put down the site once it is live and so I have decided to launch it officially around the 12th/13th of December as I will be on holidays for a couple of weeks before then, which sucks as when I booked the holiday a couple of months ago I didn't think about missing much on Christmas sales and/or was hoping to have already a fulfillment company hired, but then it took longer than expected to setup company/bank account/etc as my wife was away for a week and I needed her signature to complete some documents.
Not a big deal as I want to think about this as a long-term business, so I am more focus and putting everything together at the moment than making some short-term profit.
After this holiday I won't be going away until April hopefully, so I will have about 3 months to sort everything and have proper coverage for when I leave next time (and hopefully enough sales to justify the cost of either paying someone or a fulfillment company), so I can then focus on all other aspects of the business.

ironclaw

Best of luck with it TripleAce. But I'd be mindful of that launch date, postage will be grinding to a halt around then unless you are restricting to personal delivery only which I presume will be in your immediate locality? I'd almost wait for the Christmas rush to be over, you run the risk of being overwhelmed if you have a lot of orders on the cards and no prospect of resupply until the New Year.

TripleAce

ironclaw wrote: »

Best of luck with it TripleAce. But I'd be mindful of that launch date, postage will be grinding to a halt around then unless you are restricting to personal delivery only which I presume will be in your immediate locality? I'd almost wait for the Christmas rush to be over, you run the risk of being overwhelmed if you have a lot of orders on the cards and no prospect of resupply until the New Year.

Thanks for the advice, I am a bit concerned about this too. Plan is to start advertising Ireland/UK first, but as you say delivery may get delayed over the Christmas period. I wish we were in July/August now, I should have moved a bit faster earlier :mad:

As I will be on holidays for a couple of weeks travelling and will have a lot of free time between activities, can anyone advise a good book about e-Commerce Marketing/Advertising/Sales strategies? I want to read at least a couple of books when away, any suggestion is more than welcome!

TripleAce

I post a question here as I don't think I should start a new thread for this.

Just before Christmas I received my first shipment as a LTD company from a Chinese supplier (took a bit longer than expected to complete the branding process), value of the sample around 600$. Once arrived I had to provide the courier with the payment details so they could charge VAT/Duty Tax, which turned out to be around 200$. They also required me to provide a EORI number that I needed to get before the goods could be cleared and screenshot of paypal transaction. I did so and got the goods.

Last week I received my first sample order from a supplier from Pakistan, value also around 600$ - same product category but different look/type. After opening the shipment I noticed that he declared only 150$ as value on shipment and the courier only charged me around 50$, which I paid to the delivery guy. This supplier is from a different country (Pakistan) and I never imported anything from there before, but I believe the reason I only paid 50$ taxes is because he under-declared the value of the goods and not because a lower tax rate than China.

My question is, once I prepare the book-keeping file for my accountant at the end of the year and he will pass the detail to the Tax office, will they wonder why on a purchasing transaction of 600$ I only paid 40$ taxes? Or should be up to the courier company to verify? I will ask my supplier to quote the correct value on next shipments, but I am not sure whether I should call the courier and tell them about the mistake so I can pay the correct value?

Any advice is more than welcome!

pedronomix

If you are registered for VAT the VAT will be collected from you sales, so only a payment timing issue and little no loss to the state. If you are nor Vat reg, it is a fraud on the state! Opening it up to scrutiny will cause you untold grief. I would just make sure it is invoiced correctly in future. It is highly unlikely to be uncovered as a one off unless you get a full audit......unlikely at this level of trading.

TripleAce

pedronomix wrote: »

If you are registered for VAT the VAT will be collected from you sales, so only a payment timing issue and little no loss to the state. If you are nor Vat reg, it is a fraud on the state! Opening it up to scrutiny will cause you untold grief. I would just make sure it is invoiced correctly in future. It is highly unlikely to be uncovered as a one off unless you get a full audit......unlikely at this level of trading.

Thank you! I am not registered for VAT, I will make sure the supplier will send the invoices for the correct amount in future. Should I ask my supplier the correct invoice for this shipment also and call the courier to fix it?

Regarding the previous shipment for which 200€ were charged in VAT/Duty, this is actually way off. I went to this site http://www.dutycalculator.com/ this morning and Duty/Taxes for this product should have been 130€, so courier charged me 70€ more! I haven't paid yet, will call them to clarify.

Another thing I am a bit confused about though, suppose I pay a supplier 1000€ for a shipment, of this 700€ is for the cost of the products, 100€ for shipping and 200€ for one-off work done on the products such as printing, services/minor changes, shouldn't the billable VAT/Duty only be for 700€+100€ and exclude the 200€ ?

Thank you for your help.

pedronomix

Duty is calculated on the total invoice charge plus any delivery and then VAT on that total. As to the other matter that is a decision only you can make

JMR

In relation to your earlier query on outsourcing the storage and delivery of your orders, I can recommend 2flow

We use them for Ireland and Europe (Non UK) deliveries and have found them excellent.
Storage is charged on a monthly basis and obviously varies depending on the space you require. Order pick and pack is charged at €1.25 and next day delivery in Ireland is €4.95 up to 2kg

They are based adjacent to exit 5 on the M50 in Dublin

We use a separate company in the UK as next day delivery is vital to us.

Best of luck with your venture and shout if you have any other questions.

TripleAce

JMR wrote: »

In relation to your earlier query on outsourcing the storage and delivery of your orders, I can recommend 2flow

We use them for Ireland and Europe (Non UK) deliveries and have found them excellent.
Storage is charged on a monthly basis and obviously varies depending on the space you require. Order pick and pack is charged at €1.25 and next day delivery in Ireland is €4.95 up to 2kg

They are based adjacent to exit 5 on the M50 in Dublin

We use a separate company in the UK as next day delivery is vital to us.

Best of luck with your venture and shout if you have any other questions.

Thank you! Much appreciated!
Hope to finally launch the website in the next 2 weeks (with a bit of delay on the initial plan), I have everything ready to go in terms of product but I am waiting for a photo-studio I bought on Aliexpress to arrive, as without it pictures-quality was not really good. Sorting out also some minor things like stickers/leaflets/boxes, etc. and spending time studying adwords and reading marketing/branding books at the moment.
Getting really excited, can't wait! Don't want to start selling on Amazon until I have my website up and running first.
Don't have long holidays planned until June so for now I can just go down to the post office when receive an order and ship the items, but if all goes to plan I will have enough orders coming in by then to justify outsourcing the shipping, so again thanks for the tip

JMR

TripleAce wrote: »

Don't have long holidays planned until June so for now I can just go down to the post office when receive an order and ship the items, but if all goes to plan I will have enough orders coming in by then to justify outsourcing the shipping, so again thanks for the tip

I also work full time outside of the eCommerce business and discovered that by outsourcing the storage and delivery side of the business I could use the precious little time available to grow the business rather than spending it fulfilling orders.
For sure, you are doing the right thing to start out doing it yourself, just keep it in the back of your mind as you move forward with the business as I'm sure you don't want to spend your time packing boxes and travelling to the Post Office long term.

TripleAce

JMR wrote: »

I'm sure you don't want to spend your time packing boxes and travelling to the Post Office long term.

At the moment is my excuse to leave home/office for 20 minutes and get some fresh air

TripleAce

I just wonder if there is an online portal (something like booking.com for holidays or skyscanner.com for flights) for couriers whereby I can get an estimate quote to get a heavy shipment from China to Ireland from the main couriers without having to contact them one by one?

This is by far the biggest shipment so far, my supplier would send via DHL and they were quoted 360 USD for a 55kg shipment. I am not sure whether this is good/bad/standard? If this is a good price I would just go with it, however if there is a way I can save some $$$ is always welcome.

Thank you for your help!

zac8

TripleAce wrote: »

I just wonder if there is an online portal (something like booking.com for holidays or skyscanner.com for flights) for couriers whereby I can get an estimate quote to get a heavy shipment from China to Ireland from the main couriers without having to contact them one by one?

Have you tried www.parcel2go.com?

TripleAce

zac8 wrote: »

Have you tried www.parcel2go.com?

Thanks.

For some reason it doesn't give me a quote between China and Ireland

The service is not available between the selected locations
Please check that you have selected the correct collection and delivery countries.

jimmii

TripleAce wrote: »

Thanks.

For some reason it doesn't give me a quote between China and Ireland

The service is not available between the selected locations
Please check that you have selected the correct collection and delivery countries.

I use P2G a lot great way to save when sending stuff! Its only really Europe to Europe though really the couriers don't quote for Asia, Africa, South America etc. still handy though. 20kg box to UK for €19.99 thats unreal value if you use that route.

TripleAce

jimmii wrote: »

I use P2G a lot great way to save when sending stuff! Its only really Europe to Europe though really the couriers don't quote for Asia, Africa, South America etc. still handy though. 20kg box to UK for €19.99 thats unreal value if you use that route.

Website bookmarked

BattleReady

TripleAce wrote: »

Thanks.

For some reason it doesn't give me a quote between China and Ireland

The service is not available between the selected locations
Please check that you have selected the correct collection and delivery countries.

Hi,
you should try the guys at parceldirect ie, we have an account with them as we sell on Ebay and Amazon. we have linked our accounts to their website and upload all our sales in one go. They also have a megento plugin for the same so we upload all our sales in a few clicks.

They gave us some great rates for regulars shipment, even lower than their advertised rates and lower than P2G.

BattleReady

jimmii wrote: »

I use P2G a lot great way to save when sending stuff! Its only really Europe to Europe though really the couriers don't quote for Asia, Africa, South America etc. still handy though. 20kg box to UK for €19.99 thats unreal value if you use that route.

You should try the guys at parcel direct ie. We used to use P2G but their customer service is non resistant. The guys at parcel direct are cheaper and always at the end of the phone

TripleAce

BattleReady wrote: »

Hi,
you should try the guys at parceldirect ie, we have an account with them as we sell on Ebay and Amazon. we have linked our accounts to their website and upload all our sales in one go. They also have a megento plugin for the same so we upload all our sales in a few clicks.

They gave us some great rates for regulars shipment, even lower than their advertised rates and lower than P2G.

Thank you for the comment - I went to their website, but this is the best price I got for a 55kg shipment from China to Ireland. I will check for European deliveries once I will outsource the shipping in the next few months.



I start thinking that the 360$ rate provided by my supplier is actually pretty good.

Will keep searching when I have a bit of time though.

BattleReady

TripleAce wrote:

I start thinking that the 360$ rate provided by my supplier is actually pretty good.

v


You should drop them a mail for a special rate.

Also from experience suppliers tend to have some very competitive rates. But check the difference between air and sea also.