ForumsStarting a Business

I'm not sure what state you're in, but in most, registering for a sales tax and use permit and/or any required business license would result in a "reseller's permit," "seller's permit," or "resale permit" (the names vary, but the permit is usually associated with sales/use tax registration, which you have already done).

You seem to have all the administrative bases covered, and seem to know what you intend to sell. Do you know who is going to buy it (i.e., do you have a solid marketing plan)? Do you know how you're going to draw those people to the website? Do you have a competitive strategy for converting casual visitors into paying customers once they get there? Presumably, you figured all that out long ago, but I would review your strategy and numbers since you intend to order stock soon.

At this stage, you should be certain that you have a ready market for whatever products you order (i.e., you don't want to buy it wholesale unless you know you can sell it retail). Yet many new business like yours start out ordering a lot of the "wrong" product (stuff they can't sell), or they order too much product to start with (and tie up cash in inventory that could have been used for marketing). So . . . I would be revisiting you sales and marketing plan right now.

Best wishes on you rnew enterprise!

Hi noleafclover6,

As part of your creation of the LLC, you need to be sure you have an Operating Agreement for the LLC entity. If you go to a professional tax preparer for tax preparation, they will need to have a copy of this document in order to properly complete your return. This would be especially true if you have multiple members in the LLC.

If you haven't already done so, you should also check with the local authorities to see if you need to obtain a business license or publish your DBA in the local papers.

Good Luck

Have you already selected a distribution partner? Before you start purchasing, you need to define how you are going to inventory and ship your goods to the end recipient.

If you are interested in having a third party logistics company handle that piece of the business for you, I'll give a blatant plug for my company. We'll handle all the back end details at a low cost for your startup. And as you get bigger and explore new channels, we can handle the more advanced requirements for shipping into retail stores, etc.

If not us, you might want to choose someone will handle all the inventory and shipping needs.