Forum Moderators: buckworks
I want to set up a mail order ecommerce site in Thailand
shipping to the EU and USA. The average order value would
be quite low, perhaps < $150.
Ive been trying to determine what shop front and payment
gateway to choose. To reduce initial start up costs Ive
been thinking about using Worldpay's bureau service. So that
I would not need a merchant account.
My initial question I think is what information would
worldpay want in order to process my order. Does the account
need to be in my name or a company name?
Im trying to decide whether to set up my company in the
UK or Thailand to better meet the needs of a payment
gateway's acceptance process.
Im new to this so please excuse the newbie questions.
cheers
Mike F
>>Im new to this so please excuse the newbie questions.
no problem - there are lots of people here with lots of experience and we're all here to share our knowledge and gain new knowledge. even the most experience people here are still learning!
the first point to make is that worldpay's bureau service is basically a merchant account designed specially for the internet. if you only trade on the internet, you should never need a separate bank merchant account.
in general, if you set up the business in one country, you will need a bank account in that country and will receive settlements to that bank account in the local currency.
so, if you set up as a uk company (with uk address etc) then you need uk bank account and you'll receive settlements in uk sterling direct to that bank account.
or, if you set up in another country then you'll need a bank account in that country and you'll receive settlements in that local currency.
i have a copy of the worldpay prohibited countries list (from feb last year) and thailand is not listed there, so you might be able to set up as a thai company. however, worldpay settle in any of 14 currencies - the list doesn't show a currency for thailand, but it does show japanese yen, singapore dollar, hong kong dollar, so your bank account will really need to be for one of those currencies. if that makes things difficult, it's probably best to set up as a uk company with a uk bank account or as a singapore company with a singapore bank account and so on.
the type of bank account you need is a standard business bank account. this will allow direct automated payments into the account. virtually all high street banks in the uk will provide a business bank account without any problems - i have no idea what the procedures are for business bank accounts in other countries.
it doesn't matter if you are a sole trader (you trading as widgets.com etc) or a limited company (widgets.com ltd) or a publicly quoted company (widgets.com PLC) - you still need a business bank account.
when you apply for worldpay, you need to tell them what bank you have your business bank account with. you will need to take a form to them and ask them to sign and stamp the form - this is basically a check to ensure you are a genuine business. if you are a sole trader, your business bank account and your application will be in the name of "issan2 T/A widgets.com" and that is fine for worldpay.
other things you need to tell worldpay are the types of product or service you expect to provide - this is mainly to weed out the high risk and prohibited services like gambling and pr0n so it doesn't matter too much what you say. if you provide computer spares, you can just put "computer spares" in the description - you don't need to list every single product.
you also need to give your estimated monthly sales and average cost per item - this is mainly for insurance / underwriting purposes (worldpay are insured against all rogue merchants). again, no need to worry too much about it, just estimate it.
any details you give when you sign up can be changed later if necessary.
hope that helps.
Chris
