Shipping Rates & Taxes (Ireland)

HediArtStudio
New Member
8 0 0

To whom it may concern...

I'm brand new to Shopify and I have my store all set up to go live... but I'm having major problems working out the Taxes side of things... do I include Taxes in my unit price or do I need to find out what they are and add to my price.

I'm selling A5, A4, A4 & A2 digital art posters, and I would be selling them to people in Ireland as well as Rest of World. What is best practice... a flat rate for everyone... or a region based postage system.. that seems very cumbersome. Any advice most welcome.

As for Taxes... I haven't a clue on this... I'm not registered for VAT as my income for this now and into the immediate future means I would be falling well below that threshold... so maybe I don't need to charge VAT @ 21% for now but maybe sometime in the future if I sell enough units....? Again... any advice most welcome.

Also... I already have a Paypal account set up using a different email address... can this be linked to this Shopify account that uses a similar variation on my PayPal email account..? It states on my account that Paypal will contact me after payment is made to set up an account.... but I already have one setup? Again... any advice most welcome.


Regards,

Heather McCarthy

Reply 1 (1)

Hank
Shopify Staff
1102 128 187

Hi, @HediArtStudio,

Hank here from Shopify.

That is great to hear you are ready to go live with your store! With a launch, there can always be just the final steps preventing you from doing so, but I will do my best to assist or point you in the right direction.

Normally, stores in both Ireland and the European Union would include tax within the product pricing, whereas the format of North American stores is to include the tax at the checkout. Tax can be very confusing at first, but we have a great post here for merchants based in Ireland in relation to taxes. Additionally, Citizens information has a detailed guide on tax for self-employed people here. You can also reach out to a local tax expert, for further information relating to your own situation should you need it.

With regard to your shipping, it depends on what shipping strategy you are looking to use within your store. You could work your shipping costs into your product pricing, or dependant on the courier you are using, but just ensure that you have your shipping costs covered and do not take on a financial loss as a result. I wrote a more detailed guide about shipping options for Ireland, which you can view here.

If you have a different email address associated with your PayPal account than the one you use in your Shopify store, the good news is that yes, you can still use this account. You can update your email within your PayPal account. Once your email is updated, you can then set up PayPal to work within your Shopify store.

Let me know how you get on, or if you have any additional questions, you are so close to getting your store live, you got this!

All the best,

Hank

Hank | Social Care @ Shopify 
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