Legal Advice for Small Business!?

I need some legal advice so I can start a small online business! (People with particular experience/lawyers would be appreciated!)

I am looking into starting an online store in which I sell hand crafted greeting cards and mail them out to customers. I don't have any employees, and I don't plan on it getting too big, so I am the only operator of this business. The only thing I will be selling is greeting cards in which I make on my own. I need to know how I can LEGALLY do the following:
Maintain my online presence as a "business"
Be able to sell and distribute products
Collect payment from people for above said "products"

If anybody could give me some help or needs information please let me know! Thank you in advance!

[Dien Rice]

Originally Posted by jemsander

I need some legal advice so I can start a small online business! (People with particular experience/lawyers would be appreciated!)

I am looking into starting an online store in which I sell hand crafted greeting cards and mail them out to customers. I don't have any employees, and I don't plan on it getting too big, so I am the only operator of this business. The only thing I will be selling is greeting cards in which I make on my own. I need to know how I can LEGALLY do the following:
Maintain my online presence as a "business"
Be able to sell and distribute products
Collect payment from people for above said "products"

If anybody could give me some help or needs information please let me know! Thank you in advance!

Hi,

(Note that the following is not legal advice, and for legal advice, please see a legal professional...)

To my knowledge, what you need, legally speaking, depends on where you are planning to conduct your business. (If you're going to work out of home, then it will depend on where you live.)

What you need, from a legal point of view, can vary by country, state, and even by city. You may need a business license/seller's permit.

If you're in the USA, you might find the following links helpful for more information...

http://www.sba.gov/category/navigati...ness-licenses-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_license

http://www.myownbusiness.org/business_permits_license/

http://org.enom.com/need-license-onl...iness-398.html

Best wishes,

Dien

Hi:

No one here on the forum can actually speak to the legality of a home based business as laws and bylaws differ by state/province, county, city, township.

Some areas will allow home based businesses, while others will not without zoning in place for the property.

Call your local area administration office if in township or county, or in city call the city clerk and ask for business licences....these offices will be able to advise you as to whether or not you can establish a home based business in your home.

If an apartment occupant then you will need also to contact the owner of the building to see if they have rules for or against.

Undoubtedly you will need a business license....and it would be wise to see a lawyer/attorney to make sure everything is set up according to law.

As far as an online presence...

You will need...

a domain name,

hosting for the web site (don't use the cheapest around or a free one - cheap ones may not have what you need for a secure shopping cart, and free ones can shut you down at their whim and desire),

a software to power your web site - whether it be WordPress or an actual web site content management software.

a way to receive payment...generally just a PayPal account will do...however if you need a shopping cart you will have to add that to your web site (if you are at a reputable hosting site then they should have one that can be added to your site),

also you need to find out if you are required by law in your location to collect taxes on your sales....if you do there are 2 ways to do it...sell the cards with taxers included and then submit the required taxes on cards sold...or the better way to go - use a shopping cart to specify the taxes on each sale (this makes it easier to keep track of taxes to submit as well as most shoppers are used to seeing a breakdown in a shopping cart) and with a shopping cart you can include shipping.

Cornell

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All the best,
Phil

I want to suggest you that for legal online business you should take help from e-commerce solutions like first of all you should host your website keep remember to take care security protections of hosting and now customize your site related to your product. Now, start building your store pick an attractive domain name do paid hosting of your website and than marketing your business website. So, this process is absolutely a legal process to start online store.

It seems great idea to start business online and it's very frequent way to start online business and develop our website. First of all get domain name and now host your website. Now. start marketing your business with the help of internet marketing techniques.

It's about legal advise for starting or establish brand new business. I don't think that there is any need to take agreement by the government to start business online and promote it. We just go to register domain and simply start to develop is related our business.

I don't think there are any illegalities in this. All you need is permit. Well, that's as far as my knowledge goes.