Starting an online store from abroad

Hi all thank you for reading my post. Can i ask your experinced opinion?

Im trying to start an online store on a well known site. I have a British passport, a uk address, a uk bank account etc.

The site i joined up with (name on request) is saying that i may not be able to use their free payment gateway as i dont live in the Uk!

Ive spent time and money thus far and paid for logos etc. I want to try my very best. It does not make sense to me as an online store is not a physical business (usually) in a street in a country.

What if i set up an online store in the UK, then moved abroad but kept my online store! Would it be shut down by the provider of the site? No logic.

I dont live in the uk and so what? Am i wrong or are they wrong? What are the rules? Must you live in the country where you click your store is although its online? I cant believe that no one else runs a store away from their birth country!?

Im worried about it and think I may not be able to do it. They told me to use a third party payment gateway!

 

Hi Sarah Not sure I understand your reply? Sorry. Im new to this game. I am overseas from my birth country but have set up an online store. The fact that I am NOT in my country but picked the UK in the store set up, should be irrelevant as an online store has no country, town or street its ONLINE? See my point?

 

??? Does not compute: EX: Jon Bloggs in the USA moves to Italy. Wants to sell online. He finds an E-commerce website and joins it. At set up, it asks him what country???? He thinks hmm.... I'm an American and my Italian is bad, so he chooses the United states as his stores country. His Credit card is American but his billing address is in Italy as he lives there (credit cards need a billing address where they come from i.e the bank). The online store platform get's confused as the user (Jon) says he is American, lives in Italy but has an online store set up as United states.

The online store is VIRTUAL. It has no walls, roof or address or city anywhere. Jon has a valid credit card and an American passport.

What to do? Should Jon who has never had a parking ticket and is NOT a criminal, fly back to the US to set-up his online store then fly back to Italy and try to make it work? Should he set-up a store again choosing Italy as the country? OK so he does this then the stores language is in Italian but he can't understand Italian to set up the store! Should he learn Italian? Should he just forget it all? Should he open a bank account in Italy and get an Italian credit card but still set up his store as being in the United States? Will the online store hosted by the E-commerce website based in Canada allow it???

An online store, is as the tin stays, ONLINE. He wants to drop ship via his online store interface and sell products from China to his country although he lives in Italy. He will not store, produce or export anything from the USA but he lives in Italy. It is all sold from the supplier in China to other countries via sales from an online store. The store owner gets paid by the online shopper and pays the supplier in China. Should be easy right? The supplier gets paid the store owner gets paid and the shopper is happy with her new shoes. She does not know they are from China. Where Jon is or his online store is not important.

Conclusion: So if you dont live in the country you can't set up an online store and you can't choose your birth country? You have a passport, address and bank account for your country but don't live there so can't set up an online store while you live abroad? = NO you can't. So what is the WWW and a virtual online selling store? Any logic?

What can Jon do? Is there a moral here?

 

I think there is a simple solution to your problem, but with you having started on the wrong foot you might now find it a bit difficult to remedy the problem.

• If you have a UK bank account and address, you should be able to obtain a UK credit card. That would entitle you to use your UK address as your billing address.
  
• By identifying yourself as a resident of the UK (having a verifiable UK address?) you can set up your business as a UK resident.
  
• The business location can, as you correctly understand, be anywhere on earth. Many UK businesses use .com domains rather than .co.uk.
  
• Your difficulty now lies in the fact that you have already joined up with someone like https://www.shopify.com/ ?? and they will forever regard you as a resident of whichever country you nominated, unless you can prove residence in the UK.

To overcome the obstacle I described in that last point, you might find it necessary to join a different service site and start again.

Finally, I would suggest you give serious thought to the potential problems of dropshipping from China. There are many of them. If you only have capital of a few hundred dollars, it is possible to establish a real, sustainable business by importing small quantities of inventory direct from manufacturers in China, and NO, you don't have to even touch or see the products.

Walter Hay

 

Not sure if you refer to Ebay, but the same thing happened to me between Mexico and the US, and they won't let me. My advise is to get a business partner, that's what I did. Good Luck!

 

You should be able to start ecommerce if you're in the uk without any problems.