It’s been quite a while since I’ve done the last mailbag, but things have been pretty hectic. For one thing, our online store store has been experiencing some growing pains. Currently, we are getting more business than we can handle which is causing us some amount of mental strain and fatigue.

We are now debating how much additional help we need to hire without blowing the budget. At the same time, my two year old daughter has become a handful and my son is just starting to become mobile. In any case, don’t want to bore you too long with mundane family details. Onto the Q & A.

I live in Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada and am looking at starting an online business selling virtual strategic planning tools to Canada and the USA. My question is about paying sales tax on online sales. I have been doing research …

It’s been a long time since the last mailbag but most of the questions that I’ve been receiving lately have either been fully covered on this blog or have required quick one or two sentence answers. For those of you sending me questions, please add as much detail as possible so that I can better address your concerns.

Incidentally, I’ve also just compiled an ebook that I’m giving away which outlines the fundamentals of how to create a niche ecommerce website. It’s free and you can download it by signing up for my newsletter. In any case, onto the questions.

Steeeve . . I don’t know how I found this page, must be the Lord workin’ I am trying to finally launch my greeting card business. Everything is finally in order after so much hard work and money invested. I finally figured out that what I need is an …

Things are finally settling down a little bit in my household with our newborn. I’m getting used to the lack of sleep and the incessant crying. I’m getting used to multitasking while taking care of the kids. In fact, I wrote my last post while standing up and bouncing my son in my sling! In any case, now that I have somewhat of a routine, my writing schedule should slowly revert back to normal.

In any case, it has been a while since I’ve answered questions. Usually, I’m pretty good about responding to email but lately, I’ve been dropping a lot of things on the floor in order to catch up on rest. But without further ado, here are the topics for today.

These first two sets of questions are related so I’m lumping the answers into one.

i am in the process of importing from thailand …

It has been a whirlwind two weeks for my family. On December 5th, I attended my brothers wedding. 2 days later, my wife gave birth to our second child Kyle (6lbs 11 oz). The following day, escrow closed on our new house and the day after that contractors began working on the house. During these next few weeks, we will be packing our bags for the big move.

In any case, it has been a while since I last did a mailbag so here are the questions for the week. I’m a bit backlogged but am doing my best to go through my mail.

I love your introduction to corporate entities and I am linking to it in my own blog to recommend it a resource for my readers. One question, I’m surprised that you didn’t choose the S-Corp as a store owner. Often, the S-corporation structure …

My wife and I went to the obstetrician yesterday and found out that she’s literally ready to deliver at any time now. So inevitably in the next day or so, we will be having another little boy in our household! The timing is also such that our new house closes escrow the day after we are due, my mom is flying in and my brother is getting married all around the same time too. It’s going to be a busy week.

It’s hard to tell how much of an impact this will have on our other activities, but I wanted to let you all know that I may be MIA for a couple weeks in terms of answering questions. But without further ado, here are a few questions for the week.

I’m creating a website to promote affiliate products. I wasn’t sure if I needed …

Since the internet is a virtual marketplace, could I create an online business from outside of the US but targetting mainly the US market (or English-speaking web users anywhere else), and can I use US-based internet-business service providers (web hosts, etc.) to set up? If I am not in the US, do I still need to secure a US business license to set up the internet-based business?
If you live outside of the United states, you should not need a business license. The purpose of the business license requirement is so that the state or city can enforce that you pay the necessary sales and business taxes if your place of business resides within their locality. That being said, there may be other fees and taxes involved in shipping your products into the United States. Unfortunately, I’m not an expert here so you should …

I don’t know why but ever since the birth of my daughter, I’ve been getting sick more often than ever before in my life. This week I was sidelined with a stomach virus so I was unable to post my usual articles for the week. In any case, after not eating for 2 straight days I’m finally well enough to answer a few questions from my readers.

But before I do, I thought I’d share a few pictures from this past Halloween. After all, what is the point of quitting your job if you can’t witness moments like these and dress up your children like animals? These costumes were kind of pricey but worth every single penny.

Ok and now onto the questions.

I am looking to start an online clothing store and wanted some advice on the best way to go about obtaining a retail business license or …

Some interesting questions of the week. I just want to apologize to those whose questions I haven’t been able to get to just yet. I will get to all of them eventually, I promise.

I am trying to start my business but I’m having a heck of a time with dreamweaver. It’s got to be the most unintuitive thing i’ve ever tried to learn. Especially with CSS considering one change on one page changes something else you didn’t intend in a different page. I’ve come close to throwing my laptop several times now.

Anyway, I was initially trying to build my own website by myself and just add an “add-on” shopping cart to it that I can drop “add to cart” buttons anywhere on the page. However, I know that html or “static” front end websites are more search engine friendly and can have a more custom look but I’m …

I’ve been finding myself answering the same types of questions on email over and over so I thought it might be more productive and interesting to answer them in a single wrap up post for all to see. Here are a few questions that I received this week.

Help With Product Sourcing

I will like to start my online store, and we has been having almost the same situation that you share on your website. We have 3 kids and my wife isn’t working.
I look to on alibaba and dhgate website because they have the best prices I ever see in my life, but most of the product they sells are replicas, fakes, copies and iligal. This is giving me a hard time to choose a good product to sell without broke any law.
Did you have any advice? My wife and I will like to sale woman cloght, shoes, …