On Exporting, Liability, and "Marketing"

Get help, and assist others in with open source kits and running a business! Do not ask for legal advice or for consulting services in this forum, only general biz questions!

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Get help, and assist others in with open source kits and running a business! Do not ask for legal advice or for consulting services in this forum, only general biz questions!
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worldgnat
 
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On Exporting, Liability, and "Marketing"

Post by worldgnat »

Hello all,

I'm trying to start an online kit business up here in Canada, and I have a few questions I was hoping someone could help me answer.

First, the issue of liability. Is there any real danger that I'll sell someone a kit, they'll start to solder it, jab themselves in the hand with their iron, and then sue me for all I've got? Is a disclaimer enough to prevent this?

Second, is the issue of exporting. I've read another post on this forum about international sales, but it didn't really answer the question for me. What I'm looking at is the issue of paperwork, specifically what sort of customs hoops one has to jump through to get electronic goods shipped across borders. I'm thinking of using FedEx to ship internationally since they're so reliable, but I might have to use Canada Post as well. Can someone provide any personal experience with this, even if it's with USPS, just so I can get an idea of what I need to do?

Finally, I'm not sure what to do about marketing. Obviously my main goal in doing starting this whole thing is to have fun and get my designs out there, so I'm not too worried about marketing, but I would like to make a little money from this project - hopefully at least enough to cover my initial investment. I'm planning to e-mail the Make blog once my store opens officially, and have a little retweeting competition for my remaining 10 Google Wave invites and a certain percentage off items in the store, but other than that I'm not really sure how to "drum up business." Suggestions? Is marketing really something I should worry about?

I'd appreciate any advice you have.

Cheers,
-Peter

adafruit
 
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Re: On Exporting, Liability, and "Marketing"

Post by adafruit »

hi, great questions!
worldgnat wrote:First, the issue of liability. Is there any real danger that I'll sell someone a kit, they'll start to solder it, jab themselves in the hand with their iron, and then sue me for all I've got? Is a disclaimer enough to prevent this?
the short answer is no. there's no disclaimer, click-through, agreement or anything that will 100% protect from someone who wants to sue you. that's weakness and strength of many legal systems. in the end a jury or a judge would decide if you did everything possible and reasonable and made it clear as to what the customer should expect. for kits, the expectation is that they assemble it, tools are needed, soldering irons are hot. this is why stores can sell chainsaws and knives but once and awhile someone may sue when they try and swallow a chainsaw. that said, you should contact your local and national insurance carriers to see what type of quote they can give you for liability / property insurance. we are not lawyers this is not legal advice, usual disclaimer here.
worldgnat wrote:Second, is the issue of exporting. I've read another post on this forum about international sales, but it didn't really answer the question for me. What I'm looking at is the issue of paperwork, specifically what sort of customs hoops one has to jump through to get electronic goods shipped across borders. I'm thinking of using FedEx to ship internationally since they're so reliable, but I might have to use Canada Post as well. Can someone provide any personal experience with this, even if it's with USPS, just so I can get an idea of what I need to do?
in the USA we need to send a customs form with a list of items that are in the package and how much they are, this is so the countries can charge import fees, etc. we automatically generate these using our shopping cart. you may want to find other small biz folks in canada who are selling things online, we're not sure if it's the same.

also check out our "open source hardware and the web" presentation:
http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2009/11/17 ... york-2009/

also check out our kit biz preso:
http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2009/06/08 ... ker-faire/
worldgnat wrote:Finally, I'm not sure what to do about marketing. Obviously my main goal in doing starting this whole thing is to have fun and get my designs out there, so I'm not too worried about marketing, but I would like to make a little money from this project - hopefully at least enough to cover my initial investment. I'm planning to e-mail the Make blog once my store opens officially, and have a little retweeting competition for my remaining 10 Google Wave invites and a certain percentage off items in the store, but other than that I'm not really sure how to "drum up business." Suggestions? Is marketing really something I should worry about?
good information is advertising. do amazing tutorials, how-tos, videos and you'll not only contribute to the sum of human knowledge but you'll likely inspire people to reward you by buying a kit.

lastly, consider open source hardware as a marketing vehicle. nothing makes you more successful, faster, and inexpensively than having a wonderful community celebrate your designs and offer feedback along the way.

hope this helps! and good luck on our journey to make the world a better tronic' place!

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worldgnat
 
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Re: On Exporting, Liability, and "Marketing"

Post by worldgnat »

Thanks for the advice! Just a few followup questions.
that said, you should contact your local and national insurance carriers to see what type of quote they can give you for liability / property insurance.
If you don't mind my asking, do you have liability insurance for Adafruit?

From the first slide presentation, I couldn't tell if you were using zen-cart or oscommerce or both, but I'm wondering if you found it difficult to integrate them with your site. Where does BANNED end and oscommerce/zen-cart begin on your site? And do these tools manage accounts etc as well, or do they just manage the store/invoice side of things?

Also, your kit biz presentation is my BANNED for this project, I'm really glad you posted it :).

Cheers,
-Peter

adafruit
 
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Re: On Exporting, Liability, and "Marketing"

Post by adafruit »

worldgnat wrote:Thanks for the advice! Just a few followup questions. If you don't mind my asking, do you have liability insurance for Adafruit?
we will have a presentation (and likely talk/video/session) about what adafruit does and doesn't have early next year, stay tuned.
worldgnat wrote:From the first slide presentation, I couldn't tell if you were using zen-cart or oscommerce or both, but I'm wondering if you found it difficult to integrate them with your site.
zencart. you need someone who really knows LAMP and loves e-com to do it. our zencart is super tweaked out, other sites use oscommerce and they also tweak them out too.
worldgnat wrote:Where does BANNED end and oscommerce/zen-cart begin on your site?
we added BANNED to the site this year, it's what runs the /blog section of adafruit.
worldgnat wrote:And do these tools manage accounts etc as well, or do they just manage the store/invoice side of things?
zencart is for orders
BANNED is for blog
forums is for forums
-in 2010 we'll likely figure out how to make all these work together more, for example when you order something you automatically have a forum account.
worldgnat wrote:Also, your kit biz presentation is my BANNED for this project, I'm really glad you posted it :)
yay! great, thanks so much!

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worldgnat
 
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Re: On Exporting, Liability, and "Marketing"

Post by worldgnat »

it's what runs the /blog section of adafruit.
So the main site is actually just zencart? In that case I can see what you mean by "tweaked out." :)

Anyway, thanks for the advice, I really appreciate it.

majolsurf
 
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Joined: Wed Feb 03, 2010 8:49 pm

Re: On Exporting, Liability, and "Marketing"

Post by majolsurf »

Are there export taxes/fees associated with shipping kits from the U.S? Are there importing taxes/fees if you have boards manufactured in China and shipped to the U.S. for sale? How about for shoe manufacturing? (that's for my wife's biz) ;)

Thanks!

adafruit
 
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Re: On Exporting, Liability, and "Marketing"

Post by adafruit »

every item is potentially taxable on import. you should contact a logistics company or your local import/export office. they often have classes and books detailing what the taxes are and when you pay them

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mctaylor
 
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Re: On Exporting, Liability, and "Marketing"

Post by mctaylor »

For business start-up information, look for, and contact any business development programs available from the local and provincial (/state), and federal government.

In Canada for example, this includes ACOA in Atlantic Canada, Business Canada at the federal level, and various provincial programs, e.g. ServiceOntario. In many places you can find free or really cheap access to business start-up resources that give you information on typically issues such business registration ("doing business as", business entities options), name search, legal liability, manufacturing and import/export regulations.

Industry Canada's and/or Dept of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, DFAIT web site or their staff should be able to provide you with information about import / export regulations and trade agreements. I suspect all you need is to know the correct Harmonized System (Customs) Code for electronic kits / education / hobby. And not to ship to the "bad" countries.

The only thing I don't recommend is, don't waste time expecting or waiting for government money or grants. Find private investors (angels or love money) if you really do need outside capital, or scale back your launch. You'll grow old waiting for the glacial pace of government bureaucratic. Been there, done that. Wasted a perfectly good business that way.

BTW Shoes may have different import / export controls.

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mctaylor
 
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Re: On Exporting, Liability, and "Marketing"

Post by mctaylor »

And thanks to the popularity of eBay and small mail order businesses, Canada Post has some really good (free or cheap) programs for mail order for very small businesses, including a savings on postal rates for parcels.

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