Hi, I'm in Australia and am looking at operating a drop shipping website to the US. Are there any legal requirements that i should be aware of? I've got a registered company in Australia... Thanks for your assistance biz
As you would be doing business substantially outside of your country... US tax laws don't apply. Customs would be your concern... and depending what is being imported defines what is a problem. Most organic stuff are a problem area... and some states will not allow certain other imports.
Hi, Thanks for your reply. I wasn't actually planning to import anything from other countries. The drop shippers would be located in the US and would be delivering to US addresses. Does anyone have any experience with setting up this type of arrangement? Generally speaking are drop shippers open to dealing with store owners outside of the US? Cheers biz
There is no problems what so ever. Well except ecommerce issues. Without a US business address you will have a difficult time finding a merchant service that is attractive to moderately success dropship businesses with non-resident US status.
Thanks...when you say a merchant service are you talking about a payment gateway or a dropshipping supplier? Cheers biz
The gateway itself isn't usually a problem... the merchant account [that which turns electronic currency to real money for your bank account] is. WorldPay is the only one that comes to mind that is useful to non-resident merchants - but you have a 2-4 week delay in payment transfers to you... meaning "if you have really good sales for 2 weeks" you can become cashflow poor pretty quickly.
That is correct...the only issue is payments. You need the merchant account to allow the captured customer payments to send to your bank. You also need to have the dropship program feel comfortable that you will be paid. Many of the big dropship programs might only take your account if you have a US address for a credit card which they can bill. Some will also demand that you have other credit requierments met before they allow large payments. Contact the programs you are looking to work with first to see if you can even create an account. Some might also have a merchant account solution for international resellers as well.