Hi I'm a newbie on this site but I'm looking for advice on the best way to setup an ecommerce business as a Sole trader. I have dabbled with ecommerce in the past and registered for self assessment but de-registered about 3 years ago. I have retained the domain name but have been thinking about restarting. I understand that I can register under my own name and can use a "trading as" along with the business name which could be the domain of the business but how do I register if in the future I have multiple income streams or small business sidelines? e.g. If I had one business it would be registered as "My name" - Trading as ABCsupplies.com. If I had multiple smaller businesses in the future, how would that work for sole trader as I would want them to be grouped together such as: Regestered as "My name" - Trading as "My name Enterprises" but will still have income streams from ABCsupplies.com website no2.com website no 3.com Amazon store Ebay Store Shopify Store. Is it as simple as just putting a footer on the home page of each website that states "my name trading as "My name Enterprises" regardless of what the website name is? Apologies if this is a daft question but I'm wanting to get all the legal bits correct first before i make the jump. Thanks Jason
Don't think the name matters too much as far as HMRC is concerned but to make things easier I would go with a generic company name as you suggest like My Name T/A Whatever Enterprises. Your domains can be individual and you can run as many websites and marketplaces as you wish and do not need to reference your trading name except in terms and conditions and maybe payment processing. Things might get tricky if a customer purchases from ABC supplies website then on their bank statement it reads My Name T/A Whatever Enterprises - if they don't recognise it they may query the transaction. My advice would be it is better to run 1 website really well in a good niche rather than 3 websites run ok or badly. It will be tough putting in the work for several websites especially factoring in all that is needed to succeed such as marketing, SEO, Social Media Management etc.
Even better if you can run multiple websites really well. Takes time and effort to build up to that though, difficult for a new starter.
.jpg)