We considered having the option to sell physical goods and decided not to. Naturally, your location may have different local laws and requirements, but there were a bunch of things we had to consider as we were getting started:
- zoning would have to be changed from "office" to "retail" and required several public hearings at the zoning board. - Insurance rates would have increased for retail, as storing inventory was considered an additional fire risk. - By providing only a service, we didn't need a business license (City requirement). Retail would require city and state licenses. - Providing only a service also meant not having to worry about collecting and reporting sales tax each quarter. If members are holding a class/seminar and they have something tangible to sell, there's two options, which we leave up to them: 1. Get a special event vendor permit from the city. The city normally offers these for craft fairs and art shows, but it would apply in this scenario too and keep them out of trouble if anyone were to complain. 2. Take orders for future delivery, even if the "future date" is the next day. Just one of those fun loopholes. And yes, there are too many regulations and requirements in this city and state. Funny how they're marketing themselves as being "business friendly". --- Glen Ferguson Cowork Frederick 122 E Patrick St Frederick, MD 21701-5630 +1 (301) 732-5165 www.coworkfrederick.com @CoworkFrederick <http://twitter.com/CoworkFrederick> On Mon, Dec 29, 2014 at 12:11 PM, Gretchen Bilbro <[email protected] > wrote: > Hi All, > Do any of you sell merchandise for your members? How do you have that > system set up? I am hoping to open soon (the remodel is taking a very long > time) and have a local non-profit that wants to go ahead and sign up. They > would like to have their shirts on display and for sale even when they are > not in the coworking space (they will be part time). How have you all set > something like this up? Do you have a storefront for your space or keep > each members merch separate? For just starting out I was thinking of them > setting up their own Square account that I have access to and can sign > into. I have no employees at this point, just me. > Thanks. > Gretchen > > -- > Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Coworking" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
