We have been offered the chance to become the distributors in Switzerland for a specialised range of products, lets say about 100 items in total. We are looking at setting up an online shop selling only B2B (well, to qualified professionals only).

My questions are this:

1. Do we need to set up a company? If so, what is the cheapest to set up?
2. Do we need to charge MwSt if selling to other businesses?
3. Does anyone know of reasonably-priced, user-friendly ecommerce software that is compatible with Swiss business and language protocols? Our budget is no more than 500chf, and thats pushing it. I already have webspace with PHP/MySQL database capabilities.

Any help here would be great.

Hi Litespeed. I would think the answer would be no for the first 2 questions. Once your turnover approaches a certain level then you are compelled to become a company, and once it reaches another level then I think you are compelled to register for mwst.

Question 3 - You are right, CHF500 is a pretty damn small budget. This means you'll have to do everything yourself. I would probably check out oscommerce - it's free. But remember with all these things the cost isn't actually important since the amount of time you put it in will be enormous, and that's worth money too.

If your hoster isn't co-operative or helpful just let me know.

Thanks Mark, I will give that one a try. Unfortunately the minimum first purchase for the distributor rights is 8000chf, and that means the web budget suffers in the short term.

I've got no problem doing the shop-building myself, I quite enjoy it. But the user/admin/editor interfaces must not be too complicated. the oscommerce looks OK. Its a shame as ShopFactory 6 has a great editor but you can't set up user accounts without going through a 3rd party with costs involved.

I've never set up an online shop myself. I know that oscommerce isn't the most slick, but it's multilingual and free.

Why not scan through toppreise.ch and find some shops running a system you like, then asking them where they got it from and how much it cost?

Hi

We used OSCommerce for a webshop we ran last year, my husband built the site using OSCommerce and managed to change it pretty significantly to make it look better, it took him a couple of months in total but thats because he'd never built a website or used OSCommerce before.

I ran the shop during the day and found the admin section brilliant, very easy to use, I could easily keep a track of stock levels, alter descriptions, create invoices and all sorts. I'd have no problem recommending it, but the basic out of the box website looks a bit naff, but there's a lot you can do to change it.

Nicky

Thanks guys for the ideas and recommendations, I will give them a try.

Hi

Spent much more than CHF 500 on the setup of www.ch-foto.com. It was extremely time consuming and many hours spent on just getting everything in order.

Then again many hours doing the initial product entry.

oscommerce was suggested, and I find it rather easy to use. Easier than others I installed and wasted time with.

Take a look, I offer my answers... but later on... am departing on the 27th through the 15th.

Good luck and have fun!
Bests
Scott

Hello again!

Thought I would make an attempt to answer your questions:

1. It is helpful, but not a must. If you want to be taken seriously then it is a good idea. You cannot deal with #2 below if your not registered as a company. Ask your local authorities about which company structure is best for you. (I decided upon "Einzelfirm" [single company] with my signature only). As for the cheapest... Einzelfirma. GmbH, Gmbh-Lite and AG require investment and several formalities.

2. Your company must prove to have over CHF 70,000.- sales in order to apply for a MWST number. There is a gray area that says you may receive a MWST number if it will help you obtain this 70K per year. You cannot mention the 7.6% Swiss MWST if you do not have a number to claim it. Your customers (businesses) benefit from deducting the MWST from your selling price because they don't pay that 7.6%. It is possible that other businesses will not purchase from you because of lacking MWST Nr. Personally, I do not make any purchases without checking for their MWST Nr.

The accounting-game with the MWST is rather sensitive. Thus, I suggest getting a local to do your quarterly books for the MWST (if you get the MWST Nr.). I have an accountant that does my quarterly stuff, I bring the binders with the bills and receipts organized behind each bank statement and the accountant does the math, sends me the MWST form for signature and the payment slip for the amount I have to pay for that quarter (one quarter I received CHFs back from the MWST!).

3. This one has been answered already... plan on dedicating many hours and a good sum of money... unless you have a buddy that does PHP shops for a hobby!

Good luck, bests!
Scott

Sorry, double post for some reason. Might have to clean my mouse!

Thanks Scott for your help. I think we will be go with an Einzelfirma, and wait and see how sales progress before worrying about an MwSt number.

As for the shop, I am unemployed right now so I will have the time to make PHP, MySQL and HTML my hobby!

Hi Litespeed,

My brother just told me he's playing with a Joomla extension called Valuemart, and says it is pretty impressive. If you've never seen Joomla before you might want to invest a bit of time playing with that as well - I use it for several sites.

http://extensions.joomla.org/compone...129/Itemid,35/

Mark

Okay, we have gone with OScommerce because it has relatively good German language contributions (although some of the ones we really need are only in English ).

We are also hosting with http://www.dynamic-net.ch . 2GB shared server (with usual PHP/MySQL ) for around 160chf a year, and completely OSC compatible.

The fine-tuning is taking time, but then again business is going to start slow.

Congrats!

Not only does it take time to organize, but over time the requirements do not change! You will be constantly updating and fine tuning

Lots of fun, let us know what the Webshop URL is.

Bests
Scott

You will have to pay MWSt. as soon as you are make more then CHF 75'000.00 per year... As a company you will have to register as soon as you make more then CHF 100'000 per year...

I would recomend - depending on your budget - to become a "GmbH" or then alternativly a "Personengesellschaft"...

I would recomend to use shop to date from Data Becker - www.shop-2-date.de - it is only a few francs more expansive then you budget und it is realy good and very easy to setup...

Hope this is healpfull.

Hello Steganos,

True but not the whole story...

The "make more than CHF ..." is better said as "Total sales within a financial year." because it is not the money in my pocket, but the funds that move from one column in my accounting program to another column.

You do not have to sell CHF 75,000 turnover in one year to play the MWST game. Some companies benefit more from MWST than others. Thus, in order for some companies to reach the magical 75 Grand in sales they must have the MWST number.

It was so in my case, I had to prove that I would reach that amount if I had a number... I received my MWST number in March and was able to backdate to 1st of January. I was able to repost my orders (which was few at that time) to show the MWST was included.

Now, I couldn't survive without it , plus my sales have gone over the magical 75k.

The MWST number displays a bit of seriousness behind a company. Personally, I would not make any purchases over a few Franks from a company without a MWST number.... not financially to my advantage!

Of course, if your accountant shows more than CHF 75,000 turnover in your financial year... the Eidgenössische Steuerverwaltung will be knocking on your door

Enjoy!
Scott

Thanks guys for your input.

This year we for sure won't reach anywhere near 75K turnover, but next year it is possible so a MwST number will be an issue for 2007.

As for software, I trialled the Shop-2-date software and wasn't overly impressed. I prefer PHP/SQL driven programs like OSC because:

• They have browser-based administration, without having to install software locally.
• The Database is easily administered and backed-up.
• There are a lot more templates and add-ons generated by a whole bunch of geeks worldwide.

To me, the biggest pain-in-the-butt here is payment methods. Without volume sales:

• credit card is too costly for us,
• COD too costly for the customer,
• Pre-payment too much of a delay,
• Rechnung too risky for a fledgling business,
• Paypal doesn't accept CHF transactions.

I give you a pat on the back for learning this very quickly! Most Swiss do not want to order per perpayment, it is against their history of trust in the market. BUT, today is a different story, with Internet shopping the trust is in a slow nose dive and the customers don't understand that.

You are correct in each statement!

Suggestion to COD; offer it anyway. Some will take it if the order total is lots of CHF, especially if they need it fast!

Suggestion to Prepayment; demand it if you do not know the customer and cannot trace the name and address to a fixnet telephone number or cannot perform a credit check.

Suggestion to Rechnung; only for usual customers or those checked by an agency.

Suggestion to Paypal; offer your products in EUR, so those that must use Paypal can select their products and payment in Euro.

Last suggestion; once you have reached a level in which many new customers are showing up with their orders and asking for payment per invoice... Look into a Bonitätsprüfung (credit check) system. I use one that only costs a couple CHF per check and I get some good information with regards to the customer and his/her payment history. Best is, I can check the customers actual address compared to the address in the order.

There have been some jokers out there that have actually ordered to their old address (the shipment gets forwarded) and not paid their bill. I tracked them down with this system and initiated a Betreibung. Surprised, they called and said they would pay right away!

Another war story; there are also those out there that order with the intention of not paying at all. Lost close to a grand due to these people. Thus, I became more careful and started checking my customers.

Point of caution and CYA statement; the information I receive when checking is confidential and would never be sold or used in any other method.

Drop me a line if you want more info about the Credit Check.

Bests
Scott

Hi Litespeed - regarding credit cards, don't forget to check out Aduno (see thread on accepting credit cards). It's nice to see some competition in this space and prices are coming down. I think credit card can increase sales, but it depends on the products you are offerring and the margin.

I almost always choose to pay the extra 15 francs for COD as a customer - why? Because I am sick of webshops lying about the availability of their products. I'm tired of buying from one shop over another because they lead me to believe (sometimes also over the phone) that they could ship straight away and it turns out to be a lie (usually blamed on someone else like their supplier). Then I have to cancel the order and fight with them for my money back. With COD I can cancel the order and if they deliver it anyway simply refuse to accept it.

Thanks Mark, good points!

Thanks again guys for your wisdom. Scott, we are pretty much on track with most of your points, except for Credit Check which I will discuss with you later. At the moment we offer "officially" only Paypal, prepayment and COD. With regular known customers we will ship small orders on a trust basis that they transfer funds within a few days. Also, local people can do cash pickup by appointment. We offer Euro payment, but warn CH customers that Paypal are to blame that they don't except CHF.

Mark, I will check out Aduno also. But right now we are in the process of testing the market to see which of our products are hot, and which are not. So far COD seems to be the most popular payment method, although I would have though Swisspost would have evolved from the hand-written carbon copy form for that by now. One thing in our favour is that we are selling proffesional products, so we expect 80-90% will be repeat customers and all payment costs are for them tax-deductable.

So far we have found the following companies also helpful in setting up for distribution. There are possibly others but these had simple online shops with reliable delivery:

• www.distrelec.ch : Office supplies (The Brother package label printer is great!). Delivered very quick.
• www.frima-pac.ch : Packaging (cardboard boxes, foam chips and wrapping, invoice holders, etc). Delivered in 5 working days with vorkasse, probably quicker with COD.

The only thing I am searching for now is CH-compatible KMU accounting software that is not too expensive and relatively user friendly. I think Clarina is one popular version, but at 1000 francs its too much right now.