“Drop Buy Now Official” was the original post title, but then I started rambling about the steps of registering a business

After a couple of enquiry calls, some changing of details online, a trip down to the local Fair Trading Office and $137 later… “Drop Buy” is now an officially registered business name! You can checkout a scan of the business certificate here… apparently an important document which I didn’t realise the first time around (don’t fold it!! lol). And you can checkout my registration details here.

Once I’d worked out whether or not I could just change all my details online, it turned out that I just had to register a new business name and I just went online and changed a few details for my ABN and GST registrations.

Australian business registrations work a little odd…

1) Registering for an ABN (Australian Business Number) is free and done through the Australian Business Registrar (ABR)
2) Registering for GST (Goods & Services Tax) is free and only mandatory for businesses with a turnover of $50k or more, but it’s beneficial to register before that stage as well. You can register for that through the Australian Taxation Office (ATO)
3) And finally to register a business name, you must go through the NSW Office of Fair Trading or the equivalent for your state if you live outside of NSW. This is the only process that can’t be done online (either done by mail, or going to a Fair Trading office) and costs $137 which registers the business name for 3 years.

Confused yet? … and this is only to register as a sole trader (me) or partnership etc.

This time around I actually found the process quick and easy… I guess it helps when you’ve done it before and already have an ABN and registered for GST

I remember when I first started blueyeT systems, which can now sort of be considered Drop Buy beta v0.1, it was a very complicated task and I wasted many months trying to workout what I had to do in terms of legally registering an ABN, business name, GST and all the other unnecessarily complicated taxation stuff.

There wasn’t and still isn’t a simple guide for young people on how to completely get a business started, especially in regards to tax and legal requirements. I still feel a little in the dark on properly accounting for taxation and GST. When I feel confident about the whole thing, I might create some quick guides to help Aussie YEs out.

I think if I had parents who knew about the whole thing it would have been much easier, but nevertheless I haven’t been sued or fined by anyone yet and make sure I keep my records… so I guess that’s a good sign

So…

Drop Buy checklist in a good order of how to startup a business these days:

• [done*] Quick competition and consumer check (target-market surveys, undercover spying on competition weaknesses etc)
• [done ] Domain Name: www.DropBuy.com.au and hosting
• [done*] ABN
• [done ] Business Name: Drop Buy
• [done*] GST
• [done*] Wholesaler/s… although you might want to double-check prices right at the beginning to see if you can compete with competitors. Currently I only have wholesalers for computer and gaming supplies, so I will start searching for others as I expand the Drop Buy catalog.

* Already done/established/known from previous business, blueyeT systems

• [to-do] Business logo and website design/template… To start with the website will simply be a form to submit a quote until I can build-up enough resources to pay for a completely customised ecommerce package. So I think I will just put up a $150-$200 project on the sitepoint forums for a logo, letterhead, website template etc.
• [to-do] Open a business bank account. Although I might actually put this off for a little while until orders start kicking in regularly. For blueyeT systems I just used my personal account since business was pretty irregular and so I figured the benefits (which were not terribly much) weren’t worth the extra $10 per month.
• [to-do] Advertising… Initially I will target Uni students for a few reasons. One being that I know uni students basically want cheaper prices which I can definitely offer. Another being that advertising should be cheap and easy as I can simply print-off a few flyers myself and put them up around the campus and University itself. And finally, I think that uni students know and have contact with a lot more people than most of the other demographics.

So hopefully if they like the price, service and products it is possible that they could tell 50+ people about it. As you know word-of-mouth is the best form of marketing and getting the word out there about your business, in fact it was all that blueyeT systems ran on since I put off advertising due to time restraints with the final years of high school.

Anything I’ve missed, any tips or advice… please let me know.

Nathan Waters
Drop Buy Owner/Manager/CEO/[insert position]