Requirements needed to sell in US for non-US residents

Hi Guys,

Just wanted some guidance on selling in the US.

Suppliers tend to ask for tax info, business certification info etc.

Being based in Australia, is there things I need to set up to trade in the USA successfully?

Hi Darren,

Some suppliers don't require a sales tax ID if you're not a US-resident. If they insist, you can provide them with something equivalent in Australia like ABN, or any business related ID to prove your business is registered.

Hope this helps.

Hello!

I have this doubt, what if you want to sell in the US but you are not US based?

What are the steps I need to follow in order to do that?

Thank you.

Hi itzel,

When you say "sell" do you mean how do you sell on eBay US from outside of the US?

Hello fudjj,

Thant's right, I am not a US citizen but I would like to sell in the US products on eBay or other platforms over there (more specifically, I want to try dropshipping at first)... So I would like to know how can I do that? and what do I need to do so I don't break any rules or laws?

Thanks!

Very straight forward, you can sell into the US market ealiy enough from anywhere. In regards to eBay, you can sign into eBay US by using your regular login information and then post the item for sale there. Just make sure that you put the correct item location, don't list it as US if it's not in the US.

BTW, that also goes for any eBay in any country. Once you have an eBay account you can use that login to list on any eBay site in teh world, not just the US.

Good to see this topic. I'm new here, I'm also a non US citizen(I'm from Brazil), and was thinking about selling on amazon for example, using some FBA forwarding company. Is there anyone here who does that? If so, is there any profit to be made after this FBA forwarding fees and Amazon's fees? All considering I would get my products from a whosaler listed here in Salehoo, I should start with $500-1k whosale buys. Would be great to hear anyone's experience on the matter. Thank you!

Hi Lemyr and welcome to the forum,

I can't speak personally regarding FBA as I have no personal experience, but your profit margin after costs is going to come down to the price you secure from the supplier. With your budget estimate, that's not going to buy a whole lot of stock from a wholesaler, unless you're dealing in very cheap stock.

If you are in a position where you can't spend enough to get a meaningful wholesale discount, then that would make it very difficult to turn any profit I would think.

What sort of products did you have in mind?

I'm quite new to this this business and actually don't have anything specific in mind to sell. That said, I've enjoyed suppliers like Directliquidation in your directory, some very good prices on refurbished electronics that actually sell on Amazon, but as I said, not sure if I can turn a profit after all the fees. I've been studying this site and many others for some time now and feel overwhelmed, feels like I need to pull the trigger and test the waters but don't really want/can't afford big losses at the start. Could you point me to a good course of action? Maybe sell on amazon but not by FBA? Also I'm not really fond of dropshipping for what I've read about it..

Lots of questions, thanks for your time.

I think what you need to do before jumping into anything is to really focus on researching the market. I know it's not always easy when you don't have a firm idea on what you would like to sell, but it's important in this game to know the market well if you want to at least give yourself a chance.

Unfortunately, the days of just selling anything and making money ar long gone, now you have to know what you're doing. You need to be able to idnetify products where the market isn't saturated, then you need to know your competition and finally you then need to source those products from a reliable supplier abd a price where you can compete.

That really is the whole ball game in a nut shell right there and from what you wrote, I don't think you've really even made it to first base just yet, so I think you have some serious work to do to really be ready to give it your best effort, especially given that you have very limted funds that you don't want to risk.

Jumping in at this point would most definitley be risking your cash, no doubt in my mind whatsoever.

I think the refurb market could well be a good market for you on your budget, I don't think wholesale is really an option for you at this point. Once you have more cash behind you, wholesale would be something to look at then perhaps.

It does get overwhelming when just starting out, but that's not a reason to just pull the trgger, that is just a recipe to lose your cash.

The problem you would have selling on Amazon without using their FBA and using refurb as your supply chain would be stock control. Being that you're not in the US, you would have to import the stock from the US and then send it back on a per order basis, so hard to imagine any margin left at all after thos expenses, plus you then have the drama os strorage.

So you're really limited to either using a fullfilment service in the US of your choice or dropshipping products direct from suppliers. You're location and intended market location makes it quite difficult to see any other way. If you were selling to a local market where you are, then you could import the refurb stock and most likely still have margin available (depending on storage costs)

So you are in a difficult position with only very limited options available to you realistically. Makes it more important than ever to really focus on researching everything fro the ground up and not taking risks at this point.

Not sure if you are well versed on Amazon's FBA fees, but this link might be helpful to you if you aren't Link hidden: Login to view

fudjj wrote:The problem you would have selling on Amazon without using their FBA and using refurb as your supply chain would be stock control. Being that you're not in the US, you would have to import the stock from the US and then send it back on a per order basis, so hard to imagine any margin left at all after thos expenses, plus you then have the drama os strorage.

So you're really limited to either using a fullfilment service in the US of your choice or dropshipping products direct from suppliers. You're location and intended market location makes it quite difficult to see any other way.

But the whole idea is to set up a supplier--> FBA forwarding company-->Amazon's warehouses, all within the US. This forwarding company, for what I've been studying so far can either prep and ship to FBA's warehouses or keep my stock for a few weeks and be used to fulfill my Ebay orders, for example( with products that are restricted to be sold on Amazon). What do you think of this scheme?

You said it's perfectly possible to sell in the US market being a foreigner, and I've read that on many places too. So far I'm having a little trouble setting accounts with distributors like PETRA, the moment I say I'm not US based they assume I'm going to import, which are not my intentions, and are asking me "Proof of Export (POE)" for every order I purchase from them. Can you tell me how people are working with these wholesalers and distributors in a situation like mine? Thanks in advance!

Well, after I elaborated to their representative via e-mail what I planned to do, they pretty much denied me, here is what they are asking for:

"If that is the case then you will need to meet these requirements:
If you want to ship within the US only these are Petra’s requirements:

Need a physical United States address
Sales Tax permit in the state you are shipping from
Credit Card with United States address or wire transfers.
1 or more employees that live in the United States".

Again, if anyone here who are in a similar situation as me can give share insights of how you do it, it will be greatly appreciated.

This is just a case of them not understanding what you are doing, you need to tell them that although you aren't US based, you will be using a fulfillment company to distribute from the USA and then provide them with their details.

For example, their address, not yours and so on.

Now if they still exist that you have to have a tax id, then you should be able to use a tax id from your country, it won't need to be a US one.

In regards to payment, being an interantional sale on a new account, chances are thay they will only accept a wire transfer. Companies are very hesitant to accept credit card payments from intenational customers on brand new accounts due to the possibilities of credit card fraud on the transaction.

Hello wannabeimporter , I have read all the post about it and let me know if you have provided the correct one for your question support , since I am also new to salehoo and I'm a little disoriented , the idea that you raise me feel very good and I I've also been thinking , I want to get feedback on how to start in the dropshipping as a retailer in the US but only because it is a place with the largest Internet shopping , if there is a Spanish-speaking user who knows the topic I help to. My email is Link hidden: Login to view .

Thank you.

fudjj wrote:This is just a case of them not understanding what you are doing, you need to tell them that although you aren't US based, you will be using a fulfillment company to distribute from the USA and then provide them with their details.

For example, their address, not yours and so on.

Now if they still exist that you have to have a tax id, then you should be able to use a tax id from your country, it won't need to be a US one.

In regards to payment, being an interantional sale on a new account, chances are thay they will only accept a wire transfer. Companies are very hesitant to accept credit card payments from intenational customers on brand new accounts due to the possibilities of credit card fraud on the transaction.

This is the reply I got from a member of a closed FBA community after I explained this same situation to him:

"You'll need a US Business presence which will enable you to get a State Sales Tax Certificate. Wholesalers usually call the Sales Tax Certificate a 'Resale Certificate' as it proves that you are in business to sell products and services that you will collect sales tax on. If you are ordering wholesale you don't pay sales tax so you don't need to ship to a sales tax free state." He then tells me to check stripe.com to set up a US based business.

This is stressful, everyone says something different..

Unfortunately I can only repeat my previous advice for you, I'm not sure what more I can add. Just contact the supplier and discuss what you want to do and then let them tell you what steps they require.