groupon vs e-commerce: ideas and suggestion

[omgimfamous]

hello everybody
Im new to be here.

I would like to open groupon clone in UK.
I know it's very strange, because UK already have a lot of them, but i would like try.. and main customers will be russian/ukranian all people who understands Russian, so, main providers will be russian (russian restaurants, russian shop, russian hairdressers and other latvian, lithuanian and etc)

I have self-employer bank account (as im freelancer 2) can i do business in groupon sphere and dont register as LTD?

I have already created website (paypal and credit cards are integrated)

And second question is:
Also i would like to open E-comerce

I read a lot of materials about that and my head is overloaded.. can u display me please:
1. i need to be LTD or self-emp. is ok?
2. (in my country i have to rent some storage room to store my stuff) i need to do same in UK?
3. Can i work alone?

Thanx.

PS: sorry for my bad english

 

[Fred_the_frog]

hello everybody
Im new to be here.

I would like to open groupon clone in UK.
I know it's very strange, because UK already have a lot of them, but i would like try.. and main customers will be russian/ukranian all people who understands Russian, so, main providers will be russian (russian restaurants, russian shop, russian hairdressers and other latvian, lithuanian and etc)

So you will be running the sit from the UK, but giving vouchers for places in Russia?

I have self-employer bank account (as im freelancer 2) can i do business in groupon sphere and dont register as LTD?

I have already created website (paypal and credit cards are integrated)

Yes you can run a website if you are self employed. Look on the accounts (I think) section of this forum for the differences between Ltd and self employed

And second question is:
Also i would like to open E-comerce

I read a lot of materials about that and my head is overloaded.. can u display me please:
1. i need to be LTD or self-emp. is ok?

As above, both are Okay and have different pros and cons

2. (in my country i have to rent some storage room to store my stuff) i need to do same in UK?

Unless you are drop shipping, then you can rent storage room from self storage companies, or just general people who have space for you to store things. You could also rent a small warehouse, up to you.

3. Can i work alone?

Thanx.

PS: sorry for my bad english

Yes you can. You don't need a team of people, but if you grow bigger then you will definitely need more people.

 

[omgimfamous]

So you will be running the sit from the UK, but giving vouchers for places in Russia?

oops, sorry for my bad description.

No, i mean that my vouchers will be at Russian restaurants/hairderssers/and other in UK and main audience will be russian speaking people.
So, website will run 2 lang: russian and english.

Unless you are drop shipping, then you can rent storage room from self storage companies, or just general people who have space for you to store things. You could also rent a small warehouse, up to you.

Can i use my room like a storage?
---
Thanks for other replies i will read forum

 

[Fred_the_frog]

oops, sorry for my bad description.

No, i mean that my vouchers will be at Russian restaurants/hairderssers/and other in UK and main audience will be russian speaking people.
So, website will run 2 lang: russian and english.


Can i use my room like a storage?
---
Thanks for other replies i will read forum

Yes you can do both of them.

So when are you planning on opening your three websites and the pub?

 

[omgimfamous]

haha no, pub was just fantasy but someday, when i earn a lot of money i will do this!! A lot of latvians live in UK-London, and all of them loves ice-hockey and especially our team - Dinamo Riga. So, we dont have pub where we can watch our championship, it's very sad, we have to sit at home and watch stream
--
groupon already works in Latvia, but in small country, we have 20 of them, so for me, it's very very hard to live there, and i decided to stop work there and try in UK.
--
Freelance project also already works , now i need to translate about 2000 words
(paypal already integrated)
---

 

[Fred_the_frog]

haha no, pub was just fantasy but someday, when i earn a lot of money i will do this!! A lot of latvians live in UK-London, and all of them loves ice-hockey and especially our team - Dinamo Riga. So, we dont have pub where we can watch our championship, it's very sad, we have to sit at home and watch stream
--
groupon already works in Latvia, but in small country, we have 20 of them, so for me, it's very very hard to live there, and i decided to stop work there and try in UK.
--
Freelance project also already works , now i need to translate about 2000 words
(paypal already integrated)
---

Ah okay. I thought you were going to go mental and start lots of websites

 

[omgimfamous]

Btw im currently selling my groupon business in latvia.
---
For me it's not hard to create a websites Currently it's my method to earn money and live here.
--
And one more question ->
If i have 5.000 optical mouses (for example) and i store it at my room.
Customer can pay via paypal and i receive payment, than i should deliver mouse or he can collect at my room?
I need to register my e-commerce somewhere?
Or it's illegal to sell like that?Store at home. And receive payment via paypal or directly to my bank.account
---
I dont need to have office? Or something like that?

 

[90DC]

It seems like a fairly plausible idea as long as you can build a customer base on the back of it. Would you be approaching non-Russian businesses too?

 

[JamieM]

I know you haven't necessarily asked for feedback on the idea but it seems a bit too niche to me.

How many Russian people are living in the UK?

How many Russian ran businesses are in the UK?

Why can't Russian people and businesses just use the already popular daily deals sites?

How will you get customers? Do you already have a mailing list?

 

[Fred_the_frog]

Btw im currently selling my groupon business in latvia.
---
For me it's not hard to create a websites Currently it's my method to earn money and live here.
--
And one more question ->
If i have 5.000 optical mouses (for example) and i store it at my room.
Customer can pay via paypal and i receive payment, than i should deliver mouse or he can collect at my room?
I need to register my e-commerce somewhere?
Or it's illegal to sell like that?Store at home. And receive payment via paypal or directly to my bank.account
---
I dont need to have office? Or something like that?

If I were you, i'd post them. If you are going to have people coming to your house then it could cause problems with your house insurance/ mortgage company/ neighbours.

You don't need to register your ecommerce website, but you need to register yourself as self employed (which I guess you have). Remember, if you are self employed and run more than one business, the VAT threshold is based on all your businesses together. So if you have one business making £5000, and another making £70,000 then you will have to charge VAT on both businesses.

If you go limited, then you are an employee of that company, so you will need to talk to HMRC because you will be both self employed (by your free lance business) and employed by your Ltd company.

If you are a limited company then you do need a registered business address, but I think self employed people can use their home address.

 

[liongroup]

I find Groupon strange in two respects; it doesn't appear that they make enough money to cover their costs i.e profit. It's unclear they ever will. Secondly, does it really benefit consumers? In the age of mass markets i.e 70's-90's, I can see why it may have worked.

 

[omgimfamous]

It seems like a fairly plausible idea as long as you can build a customer base on the back of it. Would you be approaching non-Russian businesses too?

Yes, im planning to do non-Russian business too!

1. How many Russian people are living in the UK?
2. How many Russian ran businesses are in the UK?
3. Why can't Russian people and businesses just use the already popular daily deals sites?
4. How will you get customers? Do you already have a mailing list?

1. I dont know. According to wikipedia, about 38.000 +
latvians 39.000,
lithuanians 200.000
ukranians: n/a

All understand russian language and most of them speaks fluent.
2. I dont know, unfortunately
3. They can, why not? But i know that most of them dont use daily deals sites, they dont know what is this. They are using their own forums/desks, where they chat/talk each other. And many of them would like to use russian daily deal site. because it's so simple (u see your own language and etc, i think it will works automatically based on - psychology
4. Im registered almost at all russian speaking forums. But it's main problem to get new customers, BUT we have: russian newspapers, forums, desks and other...


Fred_the_frog
thank you! very useful post!

liongroup
i agree with you, and disagree. why? because, in groupon business a lot of ways to get profit

 

[90DC]

omgimfamous,

I'm glad you are planning on advertising non-Russian business too, especially if the Uk Russian population is 38,000 as you say (I suspect it could be more, I know atleast ten Russians myself).

Also, mind my ignorance, but are there other languages spoken by Russians or other languages you could incorporate into your business (Ukrainian for instance) as this will allow you to increase your customer base.

I wish you the best of luck and wish I could do something like this myself or with the help of people I know. (I have Hungarian and Latvian neighbours and know how excluded they feel, they've mentioned the lack of home comforts and would probably appreciate this kind of site themselves)

 

[omgimfamous]

90DC,
38K russians, and as i said, a lot of ukranians, latvians, lithuanians.
they all understand russian language very good (in latvia lives almost 52% russians).
So:
RUS+LV+LT = 277.000 peoples.
+ i dont know how much ukranians lives here.
+ peoples from Armenia, Georgia, Estonia all former USSR can use these website because all of them understand russian language
--
Thank you very much I'll do all the best
--
Main thing is, how to start this business in UK.
Can I use self-employer or i need to be LTD. Because i have to sign in agreements with providers. I dont know where to find information about that.
Or it's same as e-commerce?

 

[90DC]

It would probably be better to set it up as a limited company going forward but you could check the accounts category on this forum to work out what suits you better.

The hardest part of this idea would be how you get the word out about the site. You need to generate interest through word of mouth by offering a couple of very good deals. The website will need to be of a good quality as well.

 

[omgimfamous]

Thnks a lot! It helps me.
I will read this forum through.
--
But, speaking with russian manager for me is much easier rather then with English