# checklist for starting online t-shirt shop



## aestheticdress (Dec 1, 2010)

Hello, I have never started a business before and am doing research into everything necessary to start up. I have been doing my research but am still a bit confused and I was wondering if you guys could help me put together a checklist of licenses and permits I would need to start out.

First of all, the type of business: I design the artwork for the t-shirts, contract them out to get them produced, and sell them from my website. I won't be doing any manufacturing/production myself. I'm starting from my home for now. I would start out using my home as my "warehouse" for inventory. I am based in California.

I know at a minimum I would need a business license and I would like to use an LLC structure. I was actually going to use LegalZoom but after doing some research and going part-way through their process, they seem to try to sell a lot of extra services that I may not really need at this stage. Also, it seems to be a good idea to get an EIN even though I don't have any employees yet. 

I would appreciate any help as I'm not sure of which exact permits I would need for the type of business I want to start. Most of the information provided by the state seems to be catered to a traditional brick-and-mortar retail shop.


----------



## NoXid (Apr 4, 2011)

Some banks/credit-unions require an EIN to open a business account, some don't. From a Fed tax perspective you don't need one for a single person LLC (but I got one anyway for the credit union).

I don't know about CA, but in Oregon I did my LLC form online in about 10 minutes--on the state's web site. A Sole Proprietorship or single person LLC is as simple as it gets, no legal details to work out between partners/shareholders etc.

Besides the state, you may need license/permit from your county and city.

Some places (even down to your sub division HOA) don't allow commercial activity of ANY kind. Gosh bless them! You may want to carefully investigate if that is the case where you live ... You wouldn't have customers or manufacturing activities, so I would not feel the least bit bad about staying under the radar on that one.


----------



## Leg cramps (Feb 9, 2009)

go to your town hall and get a Doing business as(DBA) probally around 30-40 bucks.
go online and get your tax exempt so you can buy wholesale.you will need to file taxes quarterly,even if you have no sales. They do not cost anything.You do not need an LLC. You would only need an LLC if you had a brick and mortar store or traveling doing festivals.LLC is basically insurance that protects you if a customer knocks a item off the shelf onto their head or trips on a carpet ect. then they could not personally sue you.your company might go under but you personally will be spared. they cost around 500 bucks.


----------



## NoXid (Apr 4, 2011)

Leg cramps said:


> go to your town hall and get a Doing business as(DBA) probally around 30-40 bucks.
> go online and get your tax exempt so you can buy wholesale.you will need to file taxes quarterly,even if you have no sales. They do not cost anything.You do not need an LLC. You would only need an LLC if you had a brick and mortar store or traveling doing festivals.LLC is basically insurance that protects you if a customer knocks a item off the shelf onto their head or trips on a carpet ect. then they could not personally sue you.your company might go under but you personally will be spared. they cost around 500 bucks.


You seem to be in NY; he is in CA. Cost/hassle factor are all state specific. In Oregon, LLC was $100 and there is no sales tax, so no sales permit nonsense. My LLC owns several DBAs ... it is a way to add layers between your own name and the business. Also, my LLC owns the $ account that handles $ for all the DBAs.

It is true that I, and he, do not need an LLC, but there is nothing wrong with getting one, though cost and hassle will depend on your state. From what I hear, breathing requires a $1000 a year license in CA, so YMMV


----------



## Printor (Apr 16, 2015)

In Caly it's another $1,000 fine if you go over the allowed # of breaths per month  You can go sole proprietorship to start, and change later if your plan is showing $ success. With online only, you are very unlikely to get sued if you take good care of your customers and stay away from the copyright infringements.


----------



## NoXid (Apr 4, 2011)

Printor said:


> ...With online only, you are very unlikely to get sued if you take good care of your customers and stay away from the *copyright infringements.*


Ah! Brilliant thing to note, as so many posts on here are about copyright questions. And, clearly, so many people violate copyright either on purpose or on accident that this is probably the greatest legal risk to a screen printer.

^ Something I had never considered from an LLC/corporate protection angle before.


----------



## Printor (Apr 16, 2015)

I'm still a sole proprietor, I always thought the main reasons for incorporating was to protect your car and house, if you get sued, or bankrupt the biz from giving your self too many interest free loans or too high of salary.


----------



## aestheticdress (Dec 1, 2010)

Hey guys thanks for all your responses, that helps simplify things for me. If anyone has anything else to add feel free.


----------



## Itsallaboutp (May 5, 2015)

Leg cramps said:


> go to your town hall and get a Doing business as(DBA) probally around 30-40 bucks.
> go online and get your tax exempt so you can buy wholesale.you will need to file taxes quarterly,even if you have no sales. They do not cost anything.You do not need an LLC. You would only need an LLC if you had a brick and mortar store or traveling doing festivals.LLC is basically insurance that protects you if a customer knocks a item off the shelf onto their head or trips on a carpet ect. then they could not personally sue you.your company might go under but you personally will be spared. they cost around 500 bucks.


$30-40 from what i have seen its more like 135 here in NY


----------



## teehugger (Jul 6, 2015)

i didn't see it mentioned skimming the thread... get a tax ID from the IRS. it's free, and it will keep your personal finances separate from your business ones as well as protect you a bit from potential identity theft.

seeing your title didn't specify licensing, i have a "checklist" of books you should read that will REALLY better prepare you for starting a biz as well as give you the "big checklist" of things you never even thought about to take care of.

*Ecommerce & Search Engine Optimization (SEO) *

*5/5 Search Engine Optimization for Dummies *– Peter Kent
Don’t let the title fool you, this is a serious text full of essential information by a knowledgeable author who gets right to the point without a bunch of useless fluff like so many authors, though he does throw a joke in here and there. Most of the info isn’t too technical and is easy to read. I took pages of notes on what was covered (my definition of what makes ANY business book important) and in the end, felt as though I knew more than even some alleged SEO experts and web designers. Consider it essential reading whether you’re building your site yourself, or telling your programmer what tags and keywords etc. you want on every page.

*5/5 Entrepreneur Magazine’s Ultimate guide to Link Building* – Eric Ward & Garret French
Is a perfect companion to SEO for Dummies as it covers different territory, but does add a couple SEO tips of its own to the mix. Sometimes it gets a little technical, and tends to be aimed at larger companies, but it’s still a goldmine of crucial info for any e-commerce site owner. UNLIKE crappy books like Guerilla PR Wired, and Epic Content Marketing, this one actually thrown in some inspiration on how to come up with interesting content. The author doesn’t just stick to the subject of link building, but provides tons of great info and ideas.

*5/5 e-Commerce: Get It Right! *– Ian Daniel
Offers a lot of great info on what it takes to create a successful e-commerce site along with some basic SEO tips. About the only thing I DIDN’T like about the book was the author totally dismissing the idea of owners creating their own websites and insists on hiring expensive programmers. To make up for it though, he makes himself available with a direct e-mail link so that you can ask questions directly. Perhaps this is the FIRST book one should read when thinking about starting a website selling anything.

*5/5 Get Rich Click! The Ultimate Guide to Making Money on the Internet *- Marc Ofstofsky
It might sound like the title of a book in some sleazy “get rich quick scheme” infomercial, but this book is full of practical tips on how to improve your website along with some nice original SEO tips not covered in other books. It even offers ideas on alternative business models so some readers can make money in affiliate programs, for example, using nothing but the info in this book. On it’s own, it had more useful info than 3-4 other crappy e-Commerce books combined. It’s an excellent supplement to the 3 previous books.

*Small Business*

*5/5 Start Your Business: The Only Start-up Book You’ll Ever Need *– Rieva Lesonsky
This book TOTALLY lives up to its title’s claim! It’s encyclopedic (780 pages!) in its coverage of virtually EVERY topic of importance for ANY type of business large or small, local or online. It’s very easy to read and offers TONS of resources throughout its chapters and in the the index at the back of the book. Anyone who reads just this book will be well prepared to know what they need to know to operate any business. It covers topics MOST business books ignore dozens of times over. It’s the absolute best book for any business I’ve ever read.

*5/5 The Small Business Bible: Everything You Need to Know to Succeed in Your Small Business *– Steven D. Strauss
Is almost as wide ranging at 520 pages as Rieva’s book, the two are friends, but is more conversational and tips oriented. What it might lack in coverage of a few topics, it makes up for with better coverage of e-Commerce and marketing as well as offering more ideas. It’s a great supplement to Rieva’s book, or even an alternative for anyone that’d rather read a conversational book than one full of facts and statistics. I prefer facts that offer a few pages more of notes personally, but this book is no slouch in that department either and is worth more than a dozen common fluff small business books. There’s one SEO tip in this book that even many SEO experts haven’t caught onto yet that alone is worth 10 times the price of this book for what it offers in search engine ranking. This guy knows his stuff!

*4/5 It’s Your Biz: The Complete Guide to Becoming Your Own Boss* - Susan Wilson Solovic, Ellen R. Kadin, & Edie Weiner
This book is closer to the average small business guide than the previous two in the depth of coverage, but it offers some nice nuggets of its own that make it a worthy reading supplement for any entrepreneur. The most memorable tip, that I’ve only seen covered in one other book, probably Start Your Biz or the Small Biz Bible, is to use MBA students to do your market research for you! While this might not be the best small business book ever, tips like that put it ahead of most of the competition. 



there's 2-3 other excellent books i've read recently that i haven't updated this list with yet if you're interested.


i've read 3x this list in books that suck and don't tell you anything new. these books though will REALLY give your biz and website a solid foundation if you're willing to put the work into reading them and applying them to your website


----------



## Itsallaboutp (May 5, 2015)

Thanks I will check them out.


----------



## teehugger (Jul 6, 2015)

start with rieva's book. that one beats the living daylights out of another dozen books! it doesn't cover EVERYTHING, but no book does, but it's an excellent place to start and mostly a pretty easy read.


----------



## BidsMaven (Sep 23, 2011)

I recommend starting with Scott Fresner's book called How to Print T-Shirts for Fun and Profit. He has a couple of chapters that are directly on point to your need. One is on setting up a screen printing business and the other is on setting up a screen printing shop. You can get this book from T-biznetwork.com


----------



## teehugger (Jul 6, 2015)

> How to Print T-Shirts for Fun and Profit


i thought about reading that one myself, but a lot of reviewers didn't seem to like it. if i remember, a big issue was the authors (husband and wife, again if memory serves me right) spend more time talking about themselves than the actual nuts and bolts of teeshirt business.

this forum is a lot better resource i think. if it doesn't answer your questions, then you can just ask and get input from people out in the field now using today's technologies.

unless i'm just pulling whatever's available off the shelf in my local library, i go to amazon and look for reviews on a subject, sort the list by highest rated, then start reading reviews starting with the lowest rated ones.

i've seen some high rated reviews for some REALLY crappy books eg. the right brained business plan in which the author doesn't really tell you even the BASICS of what a biz plan is covered in almost every small biz book, but has a 100 ideas on how to use glitter and turn your biz plan into a cleverly folded collage/mobile. *cringe*

the negative reviews for fun 7 profits made me change my mind about doing a library request


----------



## BidsMaven (Sep 23, 2011)

cogtees said:


> ...a lot of reviewers didn't seem to like it... big issue was the authors (husband and wife, again if memory serves me right) spend more time talking about themselves than the actual nuts and bolts of teeshirt business.


I think you have a couple of books mixed together in your assessment. How to Print T-Shirts for Fun and Profit is written by a husband and wife team (Scott and Pat Fresner), but they don't spend time talking about themselves. It's an excellent resource that they keep updated with new information every few years. Take a look at the reviews for this book on Amazon and I think you'll see that it gets really good reviews

The other book is Mark Venit's The Business of T-Shirts. He does spend a lot of time in this book talking about himself. They are very different books.


----------



## teehugger (Jul 6, 2015)

there was SOMETHING some people weren't liking about the info in that book. i can't remember exactly what it was, but it involved lack of good info. 

whoever can decide for themselves reading the reviews here:
How to Print T-Shirts for Fun and Profit: Scott and Pat Fresener: 9780985106805: Amazon.com: Books
this is the LATEST edition.

a review of the 2008 edition:


> The Bad:
> 1) Not much in the way of step by step instruction, and not really good for a real beginner (this is me).
> 2) Outdated processes and material.
> 3) Areas seemed rather self-serving.
> 4) Despite being goof-ball and easy to read, it was not very engaging (read-boring).


it was probably the 2008 edition i looked into. the "self serving" comment seems to remind me of other comments about self promotion, and if the previous negatives didn't turn me off, this one really would, and sounds vaguely familiar


> THAT is what Scott and Pat call (see the 'Packaging' section) *hiding(in polybags)your substandard prints from the customer.* This book could have been good...BUT...a*ny book that teaches one how to employ "psycological advantages" over creating quality prints(or at least being honest when you don't!) is NOT a book that honors those of us who exercise true ethics in SP. * I have been in sp 33 plus years. The REAL world side of it...not the side that trades ethics for higher marketing numbers. This bood never has and never will represent what is best about screen printing...certainly NOT the best and smartest; most honest people in it. How much oil does it take to spoil the lake? I teach people to print right..hands on...in person and there is NO hiding of bad shirts masquerading itself as 'professional packaging'. *if you screw up a tee shirt...YOU should pay for it and replace it. Skip the gimmicks and those teaching such.*


----------



## Mtnview (Nov 5, 2009)

Leg cramps said:


> You do not need an LLC. You would only need an LLC if you had a brick and mortar store or traveling doing festivals.LLC is basically insurance that protects you if a customer knocks a item off the shelf onto their head or trips on a carpet ect. then they could not personally sue you.your company might go under but you personally will be spared. they cost around 500 bucks.


While the LLC may not be necessary if you plan to work out of a space (your residence or other building) I would highly recommend filing an LLC. Just in case you have that *one time* someone comes to your shop for whatever reason (approve artwork or rush order, pick up an order, etc). That *one time* Murphy's Law decides to make an appearance and something happens to that someone.


----------

