New online business advice

[Aplot]

Hi Everyone.
I am new to the site which looks great and very informative too. I have been researching for about 6 months to start an online gift store. I have been careful to source UK based suppliers which will ensure speedy deliveries to customers but also I want to be sure suppliers have strong ethics about modern day slavery and where they buy their products from. It will be drop ship and the website is being developed looking at a small range of good products. whilst it is a saturated market I have completed a business plan with marker research too. I wanted to ask if anyone can recommend a good payment processor that I can use when customers pay for their orders. PayPal is trusted and well known. and also a low cost business bank account. I intend to start as a sole trader. Any tips and advice greatly appreciated.

 

[fisicx]

A lot will depend on the platform you plan to use. For example, if you are using Shopify you are limited to their payment processing.

Are you building the website yourself?

 

[boxlot]

Make sure that the payment processor you use allows dropshipping.

 

[AmazonGeek]

If you are going to be selling mainly B2B then it might make sense to VAT register from the start. Most business customers will also be VAT registered so they can claim it back and you would then be able to claim back the VAT on your purchases and stock. If however you are selling B2C then you would either have to increase your prices to maintain the margins or make less profit.

I don't think this will be easy by the way. If you are drop-shipping then you will find it hard to compete with manufacturers selling directly since they don't have your piece of the action to account for. And then there are those who buy from China, ship to the UK and sell from here. Small promotional items can be made in China for a fraction of the UK manufacturing price and the shipping cost is peanuts when divided across thousands of items.

Do your sums down to the penny and make sure you can make it work at the prices you will need to compete at.

 

[AlanJ1]

A lot will depend on the platform you plan to use. For example, if you are using Shopify you are limited to their payment processing.

No you aren't?

Can use 3rd party.

 

[DoolallyTap]

If you have performed significant research about your products or business why not do your own research regarding payment providers.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

If you have performed significant research about your products or business why not do your own research regarding payment providers.

Is that not what he is doing asking for advice from other business owners on this site, One major point is to fully understand the consumer act see https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/15/contents

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

Start with someone like Stripe, so you are not committing yourself to long contracts.

When your card turnover increases to over £1500 a month, then look at a proper merchant account.

 

[alisson38]

Hi Everyone.
I am new to the site which looks great and very informative too. I have been researching for about 6 months to start an online gift store. I have been careful to source UK based suppliers which will ensure speedy deliveries to customers but also I want to be sure suppliers have strong ethics about modern day slavery and where they buy their products from. It will be drop ship and the website is being developed looking at a small range of good products. whilst it is a saturated market I have completed a business plan with marker research too. I wanted to ask if anyone can recommend a good payment processor that I can use when customers pay for their orders. PayPal is trusted and well known. and also a low cost business bank account. I intend to start as a sole trader. Any tips and advice greatly appreciated.

Hey Aplot, welcome to the forum and best of luck with your gift store journey! It’s awesome that you’re putting in so much effort upfront with supplier ethics and research—definitely the kind of mindset that helps a business stand out, even in a saturated market.


For payment processors, aside from PayPal, I’ve seen some small online stores use Stripe because it integrates easily with most ecommerce platforms and has good reporting tools. Also worth looking into is Square—some friends of mine started with that and found it really simple to use.


As for low-cost business banking, have you checked out Starling Bank or Monzo Business? They both seem to be quite popular for UK-based sole traders and have good online features.


I’ve recently been helping out with backend support and business operations for startups and small businesses, so if you ever need to bounce ideas or figure out how to manage things like customer support or admin without going crazy, happy to chat.