Advice plz,

[oowhiteoo]

Hi all,

Iv been working on my site for about a 1 month its going well im adding all my items & makeing suar it run's nice but this is a risk for me so id like any advice you can give me.

The site is a CCTV shop for installers & the public to use, Iv been working in CCTV for over 5 years & was layed off in may 09 i then started a new company with my old boss & we have been doing well intill he forced me out,

I walked away with £4,000 , Car , Laptop , My Tax payed for the year but now i have know job 2 little kid's & a house to pay for :) Im not doing bad but because iv worked in the tread for over 5+ years i know my items are good qualty & i can undercut a lot of the Bigger CCTV shop's online.

Im just worred about how much stock ill have to hold,

Allso if i go as a LTD company do i have to go VAT regesterd b4 i earn £60,000 & if i dont how will priceing work? If i have a item for sale for £20.00 should i add VAT ??????

Any help would be gr8!!!

[George76]

I think in terms of how much stock you need to hold will depend a lot on how well you turn over the stock you have and how efficient your suppliers are.
Work out how much you need for advertising, website and all costs and see how much you have for stock. Holding stock which does not turn over well will be a problem on a limited budget.
If you can't afford all the stock are you able to purchase on demand? How quickly can you get orders from suppliers and what is their minimum order? Do they ever run out of items you want to sell? Will your customers be prepared to wait for their order, how long do orders from your competitors take to be delivered?

Just think as a customer and perhaps specialize at first with the products which are most popular. Reinvest as much as possible until you are comfortable with your stock levels.

In terms of being a LTD company thin very carefully. Are you getting large amount of credit? What do you forcast your turnover to be? With a limited company you get the protection of your property if things go wrong but if you are not going to get large amounts of credit you probably won't need it.
Setting up a limited company is more complicated than a sole trader and much more costly, also the demands are higher on you and your company. Remember you can still employ people when you are a registered sole trader.

[oowhiteoo]

Nice fast reply :)

Stock is my biggest cost & worry as for geting people to my site it's the 2nd biggest challange.

I was thinking of opening resale accounts with some of my past supplyers for the bigger items sutch as Cable & DVR's the DVR's can be as much as £3,000 for a good 16 channel one but could i have these on my site & if i get a order i just get my supplyer to ship it to the custome as a re seller they will send it with no marking's & once i build up some stock cash i can start to haver the bigger items in stock my self.

60% of my stock will come from the far east with smaller items makeing me more then 500% profit & ill still be cheaper then any site in the UK, The smaller items will make me money & the bigger items not as much.