Small business startup?

**Adsartha** · 01-21-09, 06:23 PM

Who here knows anything about starting up a small business online? Specifically, one involving selling knitting and cross stitch items, the latter on commission.

Things that I have no clue about that I'm hoping someone here does:

-small business license? do I need one?
-web hosting? how much will it cost me? what are good free sites? what's a good tool for coding the site (doing the grunt work, basically) where I can still go in and fuck with the code? what stupid questions should I be asking here that I don't know about?
-advertising techniques?

Recommendations for books to go get are also welcome.

I don't know if I can actually do this, mostly based on startup costs. But I'd like to get a feel for the work that would go into it. I'm looking into both Etsy and Ebay, but the problem with both of those is a) huge HUGE catalog that people have to go through in order to get to my stuff, and b) cross stitch takes so damn long (at least the way I do it; there are those of you who know what I'm talking about) that I'd far prefer to do it on commission, and neither site allows for that.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Mocking laughter at my insanity?

**CivilWars** · 01-21-09, 06:35 PM

Illinois law may be different, but in Texas you have different options from a simple assumed name to LLCs and corporations. For small time stuff you could either do it just person to person, or you could get a simple assumed name/dba to have a business name. You might also want to look into sales tax requirements. I guess it depends on how you set it up. If you are selling a complete product you would probably need to worry about sales tax, but if you do it on commission then you could probably classify it as ordinary income.

Web hosting can be anywhere from free to expensive depending on how professional you want to look. I am starting to use a hosting company that is $20 per month for some of the stuff I do, but you can find cheaper, and TTP has greater needs and spends a lot more. Most hosting companies have a wysiwyg editor, but most look like dog poop. You can pay a design company, or I am sure you could find someone here to hook you up with a site. I have designed a few, and could show you my work if interested.

For advertising I would recommend trade shows and craft fairs to spread the word, and craigslist for online advertising. Like you said ebay is way too big for what you would probably be needing.

Let me know if you have any other questions, or hit me up on xfire.

**DJ Ms. White** · 01-21-09, 07:41 PM

I hope you get to do this. Cross-stitching is time consuming, but the results are rather nice. I enjoyed doing a bit of it when I was younger. Not enough people know the old way of doing things; they just expect a store to have some little Asian kids do it for them.

**RottnJP** · 01-26-09, 02:18 PM

For simple sole proprietor stuff like (it sounds like) you are planning, it's actually pretty simple. You'll have to check your state law (Google is your friend) on licensing, but there probably is none required for your craft.

Next, you want to check your state tax agency for the requirements for "sales and use tax." You will need to register for this so you can legally collect it and submit it to the state. (In general, some goods and services are subject to sales and use tax, while others are not. My guess is, your work is probably not in an exempt category, but might be exempt if there is a category in your state for hand-made crafts or something like that.)

If you use a trade name to which customers will be writing checks, you will have to register a "DBA" ("Doing Business As") form with your bank.

You'll find that the web has enabled an awful lot of work-from-home small businesses, with arts/crafts and handmade toys being incredibly popular as side-line for stay-at-home moms. (Especially in the home-schooler set.)

One wild card to be aware of: The U.S. consumer protection folks made a well-intentioned law, but fucked up the wording. Right now, it seems to cover a whole bunch of stuff that wasn't really intended, and for home-based businesses it is potentially catastrophic. That battle is going on right now. When the dust settles, home-based businesses will probably survive, but it's an uncertainty right now.

(See below for reference)
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/265266
http://news.opb.org/article/4023-con...ll-toy-makers/

I'm not a web commerce kind of guy, so I'll leave those comments to the people who know more about it. (Our business is a medical office, so the web is largely irrelevant other than having a page out there with contact info.)

In terms of channel, you might also consider existing small web "specialty" stores. (For example, I just bought some yak-trax from here: http://www.the-perfect-present.com/ I was shopping on price, but this guy's service blew me away. We got the wrong size, and he shipped the correct size no cost, without waiting for my return. Sounds like a really super-nice guy.) Think about how you would like people to be finding your products? Do some "pretend shopping" online and see what kind of stores you're finding, then consider contacting the proprietors to see if they would be interested in carrying your stuff.

(I would guess they will want a percentage, so you'd have to negotiate something reasonable. Make sure you get to keep most of your profit- I.E., think about your margin when you're negotiating so you don't do something dumb.

)

Hope some of that helps- Good luck!!

**CivilWars** · 01-26-09, 03:07 PM

Another site to consider for advertising is www.ilist.com. It is similar to graigslist in that it is a classified ad, but it also markets to your friends via facebook, myspace, twitter. Then your friends can forward, if they choose, to their friends, thus sending your classified ad to hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people very quickly.

**...bigdog...** · 01-26-09, 03:11 PM

I can help you with your ad campaigns, adsartha, given my experience doing it here, on both sides of the advertising aisle.

**bust331** · 01-26-09, 03:13 PM

If you want a nice html coding program

Use Adobe Dreamweaver

I have that at school, and something that would of taken me 30 minutes to type up in notepad, took me 5 minutes with dreamweaver.

**Hocus Pocus** · 01-26-09, 03:43 PM

I've been looking into starting an online business as well. I plan on going through a wholesale distributor but until I build up the money I mainly just go from item to item.

Although some of you don't find eBay too popular, I'd say it's a great place to start off. You're start up costs are very minimal ( less than 75cents for a listing without upgrades) and the market base is huge.

At first I thought wow who is actually going to buy my junky old outdated book. By the time the auction ended I sold it for 18$ which is more than I ever would've got for it anywhere else.

Don't believe me? Find something you consider junk and list it the majority of the time you'll get something for it.

What do I sell? Anything I can get my hands on.

As far as when you decide whether your hobby should turn into a business you might want to check the IRS web page. There's a list of things you need to prove before you can get your Tax ID.

Once you establish your Tax ID though you're able to receive a bunch of tax breaks and write offs.

But like I said, I'd try eBay out first the market base is huge so if you have a popular product people will find it.