A Simple Business Plan
A Simple Business Plan
I hope this will get you off to a good start on your business career.
What do you want to sell. This may help you determine your name it may not. If you don't know what want to sell specifically that is ok, your wholesaler or drop shipper may help determine what you are going to sell.
Think of a name for your business. Remember simple is always good.
Go to City Hall or the County Seat if you do not live in town and get a business license. Some people say you don't need to do this but to keep things on the up and up I suggest that you do. Cost about $25.00.
Look up your Secretary of State in the state you live in and fill out a form registering your business with the state. This may be a DBA (Doing Business As) or a Factious Name. Cost $7.00 in Missouri. Typically this last for 5 years, you will need this to get your sale tax certificate or what ever your state requires for you to collect sales tax.
Contact your states Department of Revenue to find out what form you need to fill out in turn in to collect sales tax in your state. Now this is a hazy area, normally you only collect sales tax when you sell things in the state you are based in, however, there has been talk of changing that since states have been missing out on taxes due to the internet so check and make sure. You will also have to put up a bond for this as well. I only figured to do between $200 and $400 a month in sales in my own state so the bond for me was $25.00, this may be different in your state and situation.
Find suppliers. I have signed up under www.worldwidebrands.com for access to there drop shippers, they also do wholesalers as well. They list several different drop shippers and wholesalers that have agreed to work with them.
Your "Store". There are several ways to do this, your own website, which can be a real pain, Auctions which are hard to promote and not real hot for repeat business and if you are on a large auction site you may get more traffic but you may also get lost in the crowd, even though I own one and hope you use it. Now with www.wow-ez.com you can open up a Store on the auction site for a very reasonable price from a $1 to $50 a month. Now with this store you get a web address like this http://www.wow-ez.com/shops/username now you can use this or you can go to www.namesecure.com and get a domain name. Namesecure will let your direct your domain name to the web address and "grab it" where only your domain name will appear. Either way you can start promoting your store just like you would any website, and with www.wow-ez.com you can list both in your store and on an auction at the same time and there is an auto relister that will relist your item if it is sold or if the auction runs out. You can also list dutch auctions, these are where you list several of the same type of items for so much a piece, there is more on this in the auction if you decide to use it.
Get a paypal account or one of the other services out there to collect your money!
Promoting your store. Once you have your items listed in your store it is time to start promoting it. This part is some work and takes some time but it will pay off. First off lets start with the pay someone to get search engine placement. I am using LeadWebDesigners.com they do not have bad prices and will help you get position with the search engines. Now for what to do yourself you need to start getting links to your domain this is done by submitting it to directories, blogs, message boards. Here is a page with many of the directories I have submitted to myself and a tool to help check your link popularity. Free Link Directories
Find as many ways to promote and advertise your site as you can and keep at it, keep at it, keep at it. Persistence pays off.
I hope this will get you off to a good start on your business career.
What do you want to sell. This may help you determine your name it may not. If you don't know what want to sell specifically that is ok, your wholesaler or drop shipper may help determine what you are going to sell.
Think of a name for your business. Remember simple is always good.
Go to City Hall or the County Seat if you do not live in town and get a business license. Some people say you don't need to do this but to keep things on the up and up I suggest that you do. Cost about $25.00.
Look up your Secretary of State in the state you live in and fill out a form registering your business with the state. This may be a DBA (Doing Business As) or a Factious Name. Cost $7.00 in Missouri. Typically this last for 5 years, you will need this to get your sale tax certificate or what ever your state requires for you to collect sales tax.
Contact your states Department of Revenue to find out what form you need to fill out in turn in to collect sales tax in your state. Now this is a hazy area, normally you only collect sales tax when you sell things in the state you are based in, however, there has been talk of changing that since states have been missing out on taxes due to the internet so check and make sure. You will also have to put up a bond for this as well. I only figured to do between $200 and $400 a month in sales in my own state so the bond for me was $25.00, this may be different in your state and situation.
Find suppliers. I have signed up under www.worldwidebrands.com for access to there drop shippers, they also do wholesalers as well. They list several different drop shippers and wholesalers that have agreed to work with them.
Your "Store". There are several ways to do this, your own website, which can be a real pain, Auctions which are hard to promote and not real hot for repeat business and if you are on a large auction site you may get more traffic but you may also get lost in the crowd, even though I own one and hope you use it. Now with www.wow-ez.com you can open up a Store on the auction site for a very reasonable price from a $1 to $50 a month. Now with this store you get a web address like this http://www.wow-ez.com/shops/username now you can use this or you can go to www.namesecure.com and get a domain name. Namesecure will let your direct your domain name to the web address and "grab it" where only your domain name will appear. Either way you can start promoting your store just like you would any website, and with www.wow-ez.com you can list both in your store and on an auction at the same time and there is an auto relister that will relist your item if it is sold or if the auction runs out. You can also list dutch auctions, these are where you list several of the same type of items for so much a piece, there is more on this in the auction if you decide to use it.
Get a paypal account or one of the other services out there to collect your money!
Promoting your store. Once you have your items listed in your store it is time to start promoting it. This part is some work and takes some time but it will pay off. First off lets start with the pay someone to get search engine placement. I am using LeadWebDesigners.com they do not have bad prices and will help you get position with the search engines. Now for what to do yourself you need to start getting links to your domain this is done by submitting it to directories, blogs, message boards. Here is a page with many of the directories I have submitted to myself and a tool to help check your link popularity. Free Link Directories
Find as many ways to promote and advertise your site as you can and keep at it, keep at it, keep at it. Persistence pays off.
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