Looking For Advice On Setting Up Online Shop

[creativeflux]

Hi Everybody,

I hope this is the right place to post this question (my apologies if it isn't, please let me know), I have some questions in regards to starting an online shop here in BKK.

Background Info:

I'm a full-time employee here in Bangkok (European expat, in BKK since '09) and currently hold a work permit. I've been thinking about starting an online shop for fun and hopefully to supplement my income. I would like to sell digital information products such as e-books, audio guides and tutorials based on my target market (meditation courses, sound therapy and high quality binaural audio to be more specific). All content is created by myself and the largest customer base would likely be in US & Western Europe. Please note that all products would be digital, so no issues with shipping or physical merchandise.

These products would be available for purchase-download via my website (which I still need to set-up) and payment would be PayPal for now (and If I figure out how, credit cards as well - I heard about clickbank but haven't done any research on it yet).

All earnings from this 'shop' (given this is even profitable ) would end up in my personal Thai bank account.

I really don't know much about how Thai laws deal with this, and I'm hoping to find some advice or information from people who have either done something similar, or know what the rules are like.

My questions are:

1. Would running this online shop cause any conflict whatsoever with my work-permit? (No Idea about the laws here)

2. Would I need to pay Income Tax on sales? If yes, how do I declare them and could there be any problems as I'm also a full-time employee?

3. Is there anything else I need to be aware of which I might be missing, apart from setting up the site and processing payments (again, in terms of Thai laws, anything that could cause a headache, etc.)

(sorry if I sound like a total n00b. )

If there's any more info you need, just let me know. I appreciate any information or pointers you could share in this regard.

Thanks! :jap:

Mark

[Mario2008]

moved to business section.

[danbradster]

Paypal can accept credit card payments from non-members. Clickbank is for marketing more-so than a payment facility.

Income is income and you would be taxes on it, but I don't know about the work permit.

You're presumably got a marketing plan?

I also want to run an online store in Thailand, import/export, but I have a lot to learn about the work permit requirements... At the moment I do internet business in Australia.

[WarpSpeed]

The work permit is a conflict as you can have only one work permit per job and the current one likely doesn't cover the same job description, location, etc.

I'd suggest you get or use a bank account in your home country or other and have your money deposited there and transfer when you need to Thai account so you're paying taxes on it there instead of Thailand..

You can not do both these jobs and stay within the law in Thailand so if that's your goal it isn't going to happen..

Edited May 11, 2011 by WarpSpeed

[kuffki]

Mark, you have absolutely nothing to worry about.

For starters how would anyone locally know who you were? they do not, so do not even advertise it.

You can have the money coming into your local (Thai) bank account and i would suggest you do that, because big brother is not watching. The only time thai bank need to report your money is if you have 1 million

You can register domain name with private registration, ie your name can not be accessed unless court order is issued

If you need more detailed info, feel free to PM me,

[itworker]

Regarding the payment systems online:

You can set your shop to accept credit cards via Moneybookers (or similar). All the payments you get will be stored in your Moneybookers account and you can have a debit Mastercard from them to withdraw the money at any ATM.

This way you don't really need to worry about the tax issues in here, but of course it's not the legally correct way.

With PayPal you can also receive credit cards and then either spend the money online or transfer to your Thai or US bank, depending what country your PayPal account is registered to.

I have set up several e-commerce sites for my clients and I'm quite sure that most of them have never worried about declaring the income if it's about small money.

[creativeflux]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts everyone!

I found some useful information here that should help me get started. There are still a lot of things I would need to consider and plan, but now I have a basic idea of some available options.

Cheers,

Mark