The Dropship Unlocked Podcast

Mastering UK Tax for Ecommerce With Ben Sztejka (Episode 92)

Lewis Smith & James Eardley Season 1 Episode 92

📞 Ready to Take the Next Step? https://dropshipunlocked.com/training-watch-apply?el=podcast-92-uk-ecommerce-tax-ben-sztejka

Get your tax and accountancy questions answered by Ben and his team ➡️ https://yourecommerceaccountant.co.uk/AMA24 

🗣In this episode of the Dropship Unlocked Podcast, hosts Lewis Smith and James Eardley welcome back Ben Sztejka, the founder of Your Ecommerce Accountant. 

Ben shares his expert knowledge on mastering UK tax for ecommerce businesses, offering essential tips and insights for entrepreneurs navigating the tax landscape.

👉 Prefer to watch this on Youtube? Check it out here  ➡️ https://youtu.be/HApcED9aGsQ

---------------------------------------------------------

Topics Discussed:

★ Understanding the Tax Landscape for Ecommerce: Key taxes for UK limited company directors in ecommerce. Importance of knowing tax obligations from the start.

★ The Role of an Accountant in Early Stages: Recommendations for when to bring an accountant on board. Benefits of early financial guidance for new businesses.

★ Timing for Corporation Tax Registration: Appropriate timing for registering for corporation tax after setting up a limited company. Steps to ensure timely compliance with tax authorities.

---------------------------------------------------------

Links and Resources Mentioned:

Our previous episode with Ben: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38g6FUwmAfs

Pick up a copy of Lewis’ book: https://htabook.com 

Get Shopify for £1 a month for 3 months: https://www.dropshipunlocked.com/shopify 

Get a free trial with a professional phone line: https://www.dropshipunlocked.com/circle 

---------------------------------------------------------

Key Takeaways:

★ Know Your Tax Obligations: Understanding key taxes and obligations is crucial for UK ecommerce business owners to avoid penalties and ensure smooth operations. 

★ Early Accountant Engagement: Bringing an accountant on board early can provide valuable guidance and help set a strong financial foundation.

★ Timely Corporation Tax Registration: Register for corporation tax promptly after setting up a limited company to stay compliant and avoid legal issues.

★ Simplify Tax Responsibilities: Leveraging expert advice and tools can help ecommerce business owners manage their tax responsibilities efficiently and focus on growing their business.

---------------------------------------------------------

FOLLOW:

Thank you for listening to the Dropship Unlocked Podcast! Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review on your favourite podcast platform.

---------------------------------------------------------

★★★Dropship Unlocked - Lewis Smith★★★

🌏Watch Our Free Training ➽ https://www.dropshipunlocked.com/training?el=podcast-92-uk-ecommerce-tax-ben-sztejka<

Today, we're diving into the critical world of taxes with Ben staker, from your E commerce accountant. Ben is an expert in the landscape of tax compliance for E commerce businesses, making it simpler and more accessible for us as E commerce business owners. Absolutely. Louis today is an essential episode to listen to if you are inside an E commerce business, and running it in the UK, it might not feel like a subject that you particularly want to talk about and listen to. It is crucial, and actually, there's some really interesting insights that Ben shared with us today. We'll uncover the essential tax knowledge that every online seller needs to know, but you know not to just to survive, but also to thrive in a competitive market, yep. So whether you're just starting out now with your business, or if you're already up and running and you're looking to refine your tax strategies, this episode is a bit of a gold mine. Ben's insights will guide you through simplifying your tax processes so you can focus more on what's really important, scaling your business, and less on the tax headaches. So with that said, let's dive right into the episode. Welcome to the dropship unlocked Podcast. I'm Louis Smith, the founder of dropship unlocked, and with me is our Client Success Coach James Eardley, now when we're not recording the podcast episodes, we're running our own e commerce businesses and helping aspiring entrepreneurs launch their own high ticket drop shipping businesses keen to build your own six or even seven bigger business. My book, the home turf advantage is your blueprint for launching a profitable online store. Grab your copy@htabook.com today, and let's get you started. Now, sit back, relax, and let's unlock your potential with the dropship unlocked podcast today. We're excited to be welcoming back Ben staker, the founder of your E commerce accountant, an accountancy tailored specific for UK e commerce business owners. So Ben, great to have you back with us again on the dropship unlocked podcast. No, it's great to be back, and hopefully we have another good session where people can understand account intact. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, maybe Ben, would you mind starting out by just outlining what the key taxes are for limited company owners running e commerce businesses, that what things do we need to be aware of if we're just starting a business and we've never run a business before, first time directors, what? What should we note? Yeah, first time directors, it can be really difficult to figure out actually, what taxes do you pay and when? And I think the main thing is understanding that you're different to your limited company. So you as a person is a legal entity, which is separate to you as a person, and therefore you need to think about taxes in two different ways. So one is personal taxes, and the other one is limited company taxes. And when you're making profits through the limited company, you want to be worrying about corporation tax. And this is done every 12 months, and it will be a tax return to HMRC. And that's that's that rate of between 19 to 25% at the moment, and force for like personal taxes, you only have to pay personal taxes when you start taking money out the business. So if you declare a dividend or a salary, that's when you'd start declaring that on a self assessment. And that happens every year, and that's up to the end of the tax year, fifth of April, and that's the same for everyone. And then you have to then submit that by January of the following year. So they're the two main ones you want to worry about. And then, you know, obviously worry about limited company when you make a profit, and then you need to pay for corporation tax. You still need to do a corporation tax return even if you make a loss, though, so it's important to make sure you know that. So you have to do that regardless if you if you want to do self assessment, if you haven't registered for self assessment, and you've made no income from your limited company and paid yourself that, then you don't have to register self assessment. But if you ever get a letter through saying that you need to do this, then you need to respond. If you have paid yourself dividends or something like that, you then need to register for self assessment proactively by the 31st of October, following the end of the tax year. So they're the two main ones you kind of need to worry about, as long as you kind of know what, at what point you need to start paying these taxes. That's the key thing. Fantastic. That's the key thing to make sure we don't get into any hot water knowing that the taxes that are going to be applied to us. Now we talk straight away about limited companies, because that's what we generally recommend that people get themselves into so that they are a separate legal entity from themselves and the limited company. But just to quickly touch on the implications if you just start a drop shipping business and don't register a limited company, what are the taxes that you need to be aware of if you just get just get started as a sole trader? Yeah. So if you're a sole trader, you need to be following the normal tax year, which is the fifth of April. So if you're a sole trader, any profit from the business is not separate to you, so it's very much intertwined with you. So if you make a profit, that means you made a profit. You. Uh, which needs to be put in your self assessment. And then you would basically put that on your self assessment, and it'll be charged at the kind of tax banded rates. And it's slightly less tax efficient than a limited company. But it also means if you make a profit, you can't choose to keep it in the business. You have to then declare it on your self assessment. It gives us a bit less flexibility. And also it's the it's more liability personally as well, if we don't have a company, that's why we'd always suggest it. Now, a common question that we get asked a lot is, okay, now that I have a limited company, at what stage should I be looking to reach out to an accountant and get an accountant on board? Yeah, so the the study, there's points when you would, you'd get your account involved, and there's points when you maybe shouldn't as well. So the first point is, when you want to set the company up, if you're not comfortable setting up yourself, or you want to use a registered office address, reach out to an accountant, and they can help you set that limited company up and help you with the Registered Office address. And what that will do is, me, is you've got your limited company already, and then you can go off and sell. The main thing is, is that you, you know, you're going to need to a tax return in 12 months time, so that means you've got 12 months where you don't really need to worry about taxes. So what we'd say is, after you've set the company up, don't rush out an appoint accountant, because you might end up not selling much, or you maybe don't need them, and you don't want that cost to be, you know, eat into something you could be spending on, say, advertising. But knowing those tax deadlines means you're kind of aware of when you do need one, which is 12 months after the year end. And that's the kind of first point. And the second point is when you probably making quite a lot of sales. You know, you know, you kind of hit 1000s, 2000 pounds regularly, every month, and that at that point, you know you're going to have to put some kind of tax return in. So it's probably better that you do towards an account earlier on, because then they can build up your profit and loss and and help you with those kind of accounts, uh, upfront, so they're not like a surprise at year end. Basically, yeah, it makes sense. So once you start making sales, there are a few kind of key milestones that you'd suggest involving an accountant in your in your business at that point. I mean, after you've set up a limited company, when would you say it's appropriate to then register for corporation tax pen? So if you set a limited company up and you set it as trading from day one, which is the default position, you'll actually be registered automatically company with HMRC, so they'll send you a UTR for your corporation tax around two weeks after you've set the company up. So you're basically already registered, and they're going to expect to return 12 months after you started. So yeah, you kind of automatically registered. It's not like self assessment, where you need to go off and register yourself you should be registered or ready for corporation tax. And can I just follow up on that acronym, UTR, for anyone that's not seen a UTR before? What's that stand for? Yeah, so UTR is a unique tax reference, and it's basically the number which identifies you as the taxable company or taxable person. So it's normally a nine digit number, and that's what the number you use to put on your tax returns. They know it's it's relating to your company. Fantastic. So want to dive into some actions that we can take as business owners. Ben, I'm sure when you see a new client come on board for your accountancy practice, there'll be some businesses that are easy, straight away to pick up and get a feel for their business, and some that are not so much. So if you could speak to business owners, perhaps before they've got an accountant on board and give board, and give them some advice as to how to set their finances up in a great position before they bring an accountant on board. What sort of advice would you give to those business owners? Absolutely. So the first bit of advice is something we've seen over and over again. When we speak to people who've just created their company, they're really excited and thinking they've got a business from day one, just that, just just because they've got a company, and ultimately, you haven't got a business until you start making sales. So we, what I keep telling people at that stage is like, you know what your tax deadlines are now, so you know when you're going to need an accountant. And obviously, if you speak to us before that, that means you've done really well. You've made sales, but you shouldn't be focusing on, say, the admin side of the business. The easy thing to focus on is getting the best accounting system set up, making all the admins done, and getting all these little subscriptions for that, getting an account in place. But ultimately, what you want to be doing is focusing all that attention on making your first sales. And you can think about the accounting after basically. So that's probably the number one advice we have for people just started out focus on the hard stuff, which is, get sales, get those, and worry about all the admin and the accounts after. The other thing, which is more practical, because maybe you haven't got an accountant right now, is just keep a track of all your invoices, you know, have a folder on your PC, and make sure you've saved all your invoices in one place, just so you can refer back to them later. If you spend any money on your personal card, keep a track of that as well, because you can incorporate that as a business expense later. So you give it to your account, and they can put it into your accounts. So I think they're the main things. To know other than understanding your deadlines as well. I mean, if you know your deadlines and when you need to submit your corporation tax to your accounts, you know when you have to do things. And sometimes people can worry about, Okay, do I need to attach a term right now or no, because you've it's 12 months after your your incorporation date, so therefore you know when you need to do that, and you know you should contact an accountant. Then basically, yeah, so true. We see it time and time again. People get set up, and then they get busy doing the busy work, like you say, setting talking to accountants, figuring out which should I use QuickBooks or Xero? And it's like you can almost see the procrastination manifesting where they don't want to leave the comfort zone. And like you say, the bit that really matters is building the business, because then the business, when it's making a profit, can pay for some expert like yourself to deal with the accountancy side of it, for you make sure everything's set up and compliant. But none of that matters unless you're making money. So yeah, totally agree with that. That's that's kind of what we do at dropship. I'm not that's our part, right? Help you get up and running, making the money, and then they can come to you and get your systems to plug into the business and make sure everything's compliant, talking of compliance and making sure things are in place. What would you say the foundational elements are that a UK e commerce business should have in place for tax compliance. What you need is just evidence. And what we say is you need to have saved all your invoices in one place to have them on reference. Sometimes they can live in your email, if they're all digital, and you can refer later. It's normally easier just to save them as they come in, into a folder. So if HMRC arrests, you can show them those invoices. The second thing to do is make sure you kind of got a list of all the transactions you spent the business. Some people use a personal card, which isn't really recommended, but if you do, make sure, every month, you go through and extract those lines from your bank statement which were relating to a business, and then put a description on it and make sure you can claim that later. And then the main thing to do is set up a business bank, because it's so easy to keep a track of your spending, like and also you might be doing your tax turn a year, 18 months after you started. So you want to have everything on your business bank account. So it's really easy to go through and check, have I got an invoice for this? Oh, I knew what that was. Whereas if you use your personal bank, it's like, well, was that Amazon spend related to business, or was that just me buying, you know, dog poo bags or something? Yeah, can start to get quite confusing cut it. So yeah, I definitely, yeah. I'm an advocate for good record keeping as well. It makes life a lot easier down the line. I know a common question that many of our members, both in dropship, unlocked, but also people that reach out to us individually, through the podcast, through YouTube comments, things like that, and a question that's quite specific to the UK, really, but is VA T, and when you suggest an E commerce business owner should register for VA T, like, what are the advantages of not registering before you hit thresholds? What are the thresholds? Could you talk us through some of those considerations for those who maybe are just starting out, and the default position is they have a business, but they're not VA T registered yet. Yeah, absolutely. So again, it is. He kind of ranks with the number one thing we see an early business owner do in terms of mistakes, and it's to register for VA T from day one, which we would class as a mistake, unless there's a good reason for it. And the reason why that is is because people think, Oh, I've spent my whole life paying VA T I've now got a business, and I'm going to reclaim it, and I'm not going to pay VAT on certain things. Ultimately, that's great if you're not making sales, but, but if you're making sales, you then have to pay 20% of those sales to HMRC. So if you're in a profitable position, you'll always be paying HMRC money. So you never really win out. So what we say is, as a rule of thumb, is do not register for VA t until you have to. And when you have to is when you reach 90 1000s of taxable sales in the UK, that point, then you need to register. So that's probably the main thing we would say, is don't register. When you have to ultimately, a VAT registration will always erode your margins by between five to 15% so they're just not a good thing to have from day one, because it just makes your life harder. What I would say is that I would almost pretend you're VAT registered now, and I don't mean pretend, is in hell, people, you're VA registered, but when you're doing your calculations, pretend that you have to give 20% of your sales to HMRC and that you can reclaim a little bit from your purchases, because then that will sort your margins out. Because you'll then have to work pretend your VAT registered and then say, Okay, I'm making 20% if I was VA registered, that's great, because then it's not a shock when you do become VAT registered and you want to scale that your margins don't make sense now, because you you've registered for VA and it doesn't make sense. So I would say, don't register, but kind of factor it in when you're doing your pricing. The other time we see people needing to. Register for VA t is in a niche which is potentially like B to B. So if you know you're going to be selling business to business, a lot of those customers won't want to buy something unless you're VAT registered. So if you're like selling one example, like industrial kitchenware, you know you're going to be talking to restaurants, and they're going to want to reclaim this on their VAT bill. If you've not charged them, VA T, they're gonna be like, why not? And that might make sense to register for VAT from day one, because the customer doesn't care about the VAT, because they're going to reclaim it. So it's not going to impact your prices like B to C would, because obviously a customer can't reclaim the VAT, so it's just a cost to them, whereas to a business, they're just going to reclaim it. So if it's B to B niche, then actually it might make sense for you to be VAT registered. And you would get that registered from day one. If you're doing that, though, you need to factor in the accountancy costs, which will come with that. So obviously registration and then doing four VAT returns every year is going to cost a bit in terms of getting an accountant to do that so they're, they're the probably points we would say, you'd register. Va, it's great advice. And I think even if you're because most of our members would probably be in B to C niches. But there are occasionally people in B to B niches where they're selling super high ticket stuff, like 4000 7000 a sale, and like you say, they're going to a business, a restaurant, whatever. And in those scenarios, you'd almost it's worth waiting to see if it becomes a point of friction, like, if you're getting inquiries and then they're not buying from you because of that, then maybe the reason is, like you say, because you're not VAT registered and other retailers are. The other thing I loved that you said, I think it's great advice for people starting out, is almost pretend you are VA registered from day one we we teach in week five of our program around target return on ad spend, and then meeting your break even return on ad spend initially. So if you can kind of incorporate your prices as if they have VAT in them from day one, we even price them the same as they would eventually be with VAT. And so we're just like, you say, making that additional margin initially, but I think that's great advice and great practice to get into, because then as soon as you are VAT registered, nothing really changes. Your margins are there. You're you've got your target return on ad spend, your campaigns, your ad campaigns are ticking over. So yeah, really sets you up, you know, and you don't fall into that pitfall that a lot of people do when they were fine before being VAT registered, and then everything kind of falls apart profitability wise, once they're not so, yeah, great advice. I think, yeah, I think people, it's people who think they've got a viable business before they're VAT registered, and they're only doing like 5% Yeah, ultimately that's going to get wiped out by a VAT registration. So you want to be aiming at those higher percentage margins to make sure you're going to survive a VAT registration, and they can scale the business beyond that. Fantastic. Yeah. One thing I want to pick up on there, Ben, is that you mentioned, some people assume as soon as you become VAT registered, that you lose 20% of your margin. But you mentioned, actually it's closer to between five and 15% is the narrowing of the margin. Can you sort of dive into why that's the case, why the margin isn't squeezed as much as 20% when you become VAT registered, if you were, say, buying products which were based in the UK, they're from UK suppliers, then they're going to probably be charging you VA on the like the product itself. So you can reclaim 20% of the product fee, which is normally around 30% of, say, the sale price. So you know you're going to get that back. You that back. And then you then need to charge it on the sale which is going to be 20% which is going out. But then there's that middle ground of advertising, which actually you can't claim the VA back. In many cases, Facebook and Google use a reverse charge, which in effect is zero VA T for you to reclaim. So you want to factor that in as well, but basically, you want to offset as much of your cost as you can on a valid, VATable invoice to then bring down how much your margin gets eroded by what we'd also say, if you did it at the point of that registration, you can do a calculation where you can see how much effective VAT you'd be paying on your sales, and You can compare that to something like the flat rate scheme, which is another scheme available, which basically guarantees that in the first couple of years your business, you're only going to be paying 7.5% of your sales in VAT. So normally, we'd say 7.5% should be the maximum you're losing out on in the first couple of years of business. Beyond that it might be, it might be different, but if you're on the flat rate scheme, it does help. Yeah, fantastic. Good to consider. And I know we don't often talk about the flat rate scheme just because of the high ticket niches that we go into. I think the limit is you can only apply for the VAT rate scheme up to 150 grand at the moment, and and we can very quickly get to that limit with a high ticket niche. And so, so it is 150k to register. But then what the rules are is, if you on the anniversary of your registration, if you're under 230 K turnover overall, you can stay on it. And if, if, if that anniversary happens and you're on a million then, yeah, you have to come off it, but you still benefit from the. That rate scheme about in on around a million pounds turnover. So it's not you come off it immediately. It's on the anniversary. So it is quite helpful to consider at the start. Basically, even if you think you're going to make sales over 150k or even over 230k Is still definitely worth it. That's interesting. So for people trying to make their mind up, especially people that you know are doing the type of businesses that we teach. Ben, I know you've worked with lots of our members, so you have a good understanding of how their businesses work. What? What would you how would you help them to make that decision about whether to start on the flat rate scheme when they first become VAT registers, we generally look at the margin. So if you, if you've got like, a high margin product, let's say you bought the product for 100 pounds and sold it for 300 pounds, you know, you'd be claiming roughly. Let's say these aren't the correct sums. With 20 pounds for VA T you're reclaiming, but on that, that 300 pounds, you're paying 60 pounds of VAT to HRC, so net, you're paying 40 pounds. That's quite a, still, quite a large chunk, ultimately. And therefore, what we'd normally do is look at what you would pay on the flat rate, what you would pay on the normal scheme, do a comparison, and then figure out which one's better for you financially, and then go from there. Basically perfect. But that ties in nicely with the advice before, where we'll wait before we become VAT registered anyway, until we're close to that threshold, and at that point you've got lots of sales data, you've got data about the margin, and so you're much more informed at that position to make that decision as to whether to go with a flat rate scheme. And at the point when you're becoming VAT registered, I'd always recommend that you speak to an accountant, and you can have these conversations to really help make that decision for you. But yeah, the flat rate scheme is designed to keep things simple, and often, people can get carried away with tax, I think, and getting worried about the complexities, because it is very complex. Have we got any tips for US business owners to simplify tax and to make it more simple for us to understand the tax things that we need to be aware of as an E commerce business owner? Yeah, I think it's really understanding the deadline and when you need to do stuff like, ultimately, if you know you need to a tax return in 12 months after year end, and then you've got nine months after that until you have to file it. You know, you've basically got 18 months to figure it out. So as long as you're dealing with it between 12 to 16 months after your you started the business, then, then, you know, that's when you need to do it, and that's where we would do it. You know, Don't bury your head in the sand, and don't forget about it. You will get fined and things like that if you miss deadlines. The other thing is knowing the thresholds, like 90,000 pounds of the UK taxable threshold for VAT. So if you know that, you know that if you hit 80k then you probably start thinking about VA T, and it's probably better to have that conversation now than later on. You know, there's no point having it when you're at 90, when you have to register immediately, and then you can't change pricing or review what's best for your business. So I think knowing those deadlines, knowing those thresholds, will mean that you you know where to talk to the right people and when great advice. And another kind of offshoot question from that around I guess, registering and understanding our responsibility is that many of our members at dropship unlocked will start out doing this as a side business, that they might have a supplementary they'll have a main income, and they'll be using this as either a supplementary income or eventually to replace their main income and go full time like we have for those juggling employment alongside running their e commerce businesses. How does this affect the way that we should pay ourselves from our limited companies, if we should, and tax considerations from that standpoint? Yeah. I mean, that's a good question. So most people start e com companies, they've got, they've got a full time job. And this is why limited company is great, is because you can actually keep all the profit in the company within the company, and therefore it won't impact you tax wise, personally. And then you can obviously choose turn that money out later. So what we'd say is, if you were employed and have a limited company, you can pay yourself 1000 pounds in dividends every year. It's gonna be 500 pounds from next year, and that's tax free. But we wouldn't recommend putting yourself on a salary yet, because that'll impact your tax code, and you'll be paying double tax for a while, and it won't be tax efficient. But also, maybe another strategy would be that if you don't need the money now, you keep it in the business, and then when you decide to go full time, and you've got a nice buffer there to pay yourself, so you can then continue to grow the business. If you are doing this full time, the best thing to do is run like a minimal payroll and a dividend strategy, where you kind of use both in a tax efficient manner to then pay the least amount of tax legally possible, and that they're the main things we would look at. That's brilliant. Well, look, thank you so much Ben for sharing really valuable insights on the podcast today. And for those who are looking to dive a little bit deeper into the complexities of E commerce taxation and find out a little bit more information about their. And responsibilities as a business owner, and what's the best way for people to engage with you at your E commerce accountant? So yeah, so obviously you can come to our website, which is your E commerce account.co.uk, and what we do is, if you're kind of at the point where you've got a business and you need help with your accounting and attacks, you can book a consultation call with us where we'll talk about the best options for you and see if we can help you become your accountant. For those of you who are maybe not yet ready, because we've already spoke about when you're not yet ready for an accountant, then actually what we do is we do, like an Ask Me Anything Weekly Webinar, where you just book on it home, and then you have your questions, and you ask any questions you've got on, you know whether I need to pay corporation tax or just think I need to be VA registered on that call. So then you can see other business owners questions, see their answers, and just really start understanding what you need to do. So I think there's that. Think we'll include that in the show notes, the link to that that webinar as well. Fantastic. Thank you so much for joining us today, Ben. We really enjoyed it. No great, great. Thanks for letting me on. That was a great session there with Ben staker, clearly understanding the ins and outs of UK tax law is essential, and Ben has certainly demystified many aspects for us today. He definitely did. Yeah, it's really valuable to hear from Ben on not only the basics of taxes and compliance and what we need to do as E commerce business owners, but also some more strategic tax moves that we can make to protect ourselves our businesses and really enhance our businesses finances as well. So a really valuable conversation today. I learned loads from that, and I know Ben's expertise could be the key to unlocking significant savings and ensuring compliance in your E commerce business too, and it's not just about staying compliant. He talked about how strategically planning your taxes can actually support your business growth. And this kind of knowledge is what turns good businesses into great ones, by making smart, informed decisions absolutely and for those who are ready to dive even deeper, Ben actually shared even more strategies in our episode for members only. So don't forget to check that out if you're a member of dropship unlocked and remember implementing these tax strategies alongside the frameworks that I teach in my book. The home turf advantage can significantly streamline your business operations. So check out that book at h t a book.com. Enjoying the podcast, we'd love to hear from you. Leave a comment or a review, and we might just feature it on an upcoming episode. Also for detailed show notes and resources. Head to dropship, unlock.com. Forward slash podcasts. If you found value from any episode of this podcast, please take just 10 seconds to leave us a quick five star review on your podcast. App of choice. It helps us more than you could imagine, and who knows, you might just hear your comments on the show. Thanks for being part of our community. Your support helps us keep delivering a new episode every week. Now it's that part of the podcast where we answer a question that we've had in from a listener. So remember, if you want your question answered on a podcast episode, it's very simple. All you need to do is drop a comment beneath the YouTube video version of this episode. So Tom McDonald has asked, I'm trying to register my company so I can get a business bank account set up. However, I haven't yet honed in on exactly what my niche will be yet, and therefore I'm wondering if I should do this first, so that the registered company name can be better linked to the niche. Any thoughts or advice? Yeah, great question, Tom, and this is actually a really simple one to answer, because you don't need a limited company name to match the niche that you're operating in. So hopefully that one helps you out. In fact, it's actually better for you to use a generic name for your limited company so that you can then use it to operate in more than one niche down the line, if you decide you want to open more than one store in the future, which many of our members do. So therefore, what I'd recommend doing is your surnames McDonald, right? So something like McDonald retail group limited or something similar like that. So it's professional, but it doesn't include any indication of the niche that you're operating in. Remember, your customers are only going to see your trading name, which is the name that you can decide on once you have chosen your niche when you're building your Shopify store, and once you've been through the niche selection process inside week two of our masterclass, for example, if you decide at that point I'm going to go and sell barbecues, you could call your store fireside feast, as we've done in the past, and your customers will only then interact with you as fireside feast, but not your limited company name. Yeah. Fantastic. Thank you for your question, Tom, and now it's time to highlight a recent review that we've had in for the podcast as well. So a big thank you to Nanak for your comment on YouTube, and they have said, just wanted to thank you all again for your value. I'm in the process of contacting suppliers, and I had to shift niches, but I learned a lot from contacting suppliers in the previous niche, which I'm going to apply in. The niche that I'm in now, my aim is to join the membership and keep consistently learning and taking action. Amazing. Thank you so much for your review. Nanak, we really appreciate it. Now, before we end this episode, can we ask just a small favor? Leaving a review for our podcast helps us a lot, and it just takes you a few seconds to do your support keeps us motivated to bring you the best content, and we'd love to hear what you think. We might even be able to share your review in an upcoming episode. Thanks for joining us on this episode of the drop ship unlocked podcast. We hope you're walking away with insights and inspiration to kick start your E commerce journey. Grab a copy of my book, the home of turf advantage@htabook.com it's a distilled guide based on real experience to help you build your E commerce venture. Don't forget to hit the subscribe button for more strategies and success stories. And if you like what you heard, a five star review would mean the world to us, and you might just get a shout out on an upcoming episode. And finally, thank you for deciding to spend your time with us today. We can't wait to bring you more insights on the next episode of the dropship unlocked podcast. You.