How do I manage taxes and shipping for my first international dropshipping store?

Accounting & Taxes
1

Hi

My company is based in the EU. I am struggeling to decide how to start without getting drowned into administrative tasks all day long concerning trying to declare to the customers what they can expect regarding shipping time, shipping cost, tax, extra import costs and so on.

I know I will get better at this with time but some say “open a one-product store, it is the best” and other say “no that is not going to work, you need a general store so you can test multple products and see what works”…

It seems if I sell to the whole world I get access to a big market but also access to a whole world full off different issues regarding import problems, customs problems, different tax rates and so on.

I pay a fixed amount of tax in my own country but all over the world people are used to completely different tax rates.

2

Hi, @sw79 !

I know that starting a new business can be overwhelming, but you don’t have to sort it out all alone. To help you get started, we have guides, tutorials, and courses all available to you for free here:

Some of your time as a dropshipping store owner will inevitably be spent on customer service, but you can significantly reduce the amount of time spent answering tax and shipping questions by providing clear and easy-to-find information for customers on your online store. Namely, an FAQ page and a Shipping policy page are great places for this information to live. You could even potentially include a brief note about the general shipping time frame on the product pages, with a link to your shipping policy for more information.

Shopify provides some guidance for EU taxes here, and I recommend getting in touch with a local tax professional to discuss what’s best for your business. Customs duties and taxes certainly differ based on where orders are shipping to and from, though it isn’t a guarantee that customers will have to pay them every time. It’s a good idea to ensure customers are aware of the possibility by including this information on your policy pages as well.

Are you using an app to import products to your store? Some of the resources I’ve linked here mention the Oberlo app, but if you’re using a different one, I’m happy to take a look at their documentation as well to see if they offer advice specific to their app.

3

@sw79 Hello. I see you are struggling in your business direction. We recommend a store should start with more product variety. This give a higher attraction on customer who don’t know you and easier to find out their preference.

However, you may start thinking about inventory. A bulk purchase of inventory may bring you in a higher risk. In this case, Dropshipping is a good choice to reduce your risk on stacking inventory.

Dropshipping supplier can directly ship the product to your customer. Whenever there are any customers order your product, you may only need to place the same order to dropshipping supplier and ship to customer directly. You may not even need to hold stock or actually see the product.

Dropshipping can also be the perfect solution for some problematic locations that fall outside your profitable regions since supplier with handle all the shipping work..

-Maybe shipping that far costs too much, or maybe storage prices are too high to justify setting up a new shipping center.

-Maybe it’s an issue of taxes or extra fees, like when shipping out of the state or country. Relying on drop shipping for these select areas could be the determining factor in keeping you out of the red.

Moreover, just as drop shipping can be useful in market research, you can also use it to test new locales.

We are MakeToteBags, a supplier offer Print on demand (POD) & Dropshipping customized bags with outstanding printing quality, well-designed structures and eco-friendly materials.

You can design your own pattern or choose from existed pattern bank on our product and place it in your store for free. We do provide custom fanny pack, hand bag, tote bag, clutch bag and more! Click I AM A RESELLER button on the page below to contact us and we will provide you more product information.

https://www.maketotebags.com/product/custom-fanny-pack/

Please let me know if you are interested in our product to start your business.

Hopefully these information may help your decision :wink: