Not to let my 11 yo DS to open his own 'business'?

[oreoxoreo]

My 11yo DS (soon to be 12) has been interested in dropshipping business for a while and he just asked me to open him a Shopify account so he can start trading. Without me knowing he created his very basic website to sell an item, and he wants to sign up for Shopify trial and start buying Facebook ads (for which he would pay) and is very keen for his 'business' kick off.

He did a lot of reading and a bit of effort and he things all will go smoothly and 'knows' all the risks and because I said no, you are too young, and I don't want to him to waste for nothing, he's now devastated that I won't let him and says I have ruined his life

What do I do? Should I give in? I congratulate him for his effort but do think he will not sell (is a very generic item) and too young too understand. Also afraid if I put in my card details somehow somewhere I will end up with a loss.

I don’t know what Shopify will
Involve, or how much facebook ads cost, but I’d find out. I would think it’s great he wants to do this & support him in any way I could (I’d be prepared to pay some of the costs, but I’d expect him to use birthday/Christmas/pocket money too as that’s when they learn the most.

Whilst admiring his entrepreneurial endeavours it’s a bad bad idea. Everyone thinks they can become a millionaire drop shipping. There is little to no return to be made operating drop shipping unless it is in very large vols £25k+ per month in transacting volumes. How does he propose to propose payments ? Payment processors eg PayPal have an age requirement of 18 to open an account.

YABVU. I would be so proud if my child did this. He's showing initiative and enterprise. I'd agree a spending limit with him as to how much he can invest, and ideally find someone who knows a bit about it to help guide him.

No advice but WOW your soon is frickin awesome! Smart boy.

Son! Not soon

I would do as you have done, commend his effort but insist that he can't use your credit card and have you set up an account for him. There's a reason there's an age limit on these things. He could start an alternative business which he can legally run as an 11 year old.

Can't he just buy multipacks of chocolate bars for a quid and selling them at 50p a bar? That's what we all did back when.

Ask him to provide you with a business plan, showing planned expenditure, projected income, how he intends to make it work.

DS started an online business whilst at university - it’s doing really well
It was just to supplement his grant at the time but now is his house fund - it also funds a lot of holidays - designer clothes etc

Let him, as long as he realises he could lose his money.
Surely this is better than spending all his money on gaming or similar?

Your DS is ambitious and enterprising which is of course to be commended. Unfortunately he is not old enough to enter into the contracts required to have a “drop shipping” business so cannot legally undertake his idea. Drop shipping is vulnerable to fraudulent activity which is another reason this isn’t a good idea. Can you get him involved in young enterprise or another business where he doesn’t act as a middle man?

Is this his own money? If you ywbvu to not support himX

Some ideas on here www.young-enterprise.org.uk/

Your son is amazing. All that initiative at such a young age. You should really do all you can to encourage this kind of gumption - so, while you have concerns why not work with him? Think of other products that might sell better. Talk about potential pitfalls. Set a very strict limit on how much money he uses for it and where that source of credit is to come from. Do it together to begin with if necessary.
This kind of independent initiative is what all parents wish for our kids - you’ve obviously been doing a lot right OP! Would be such a shame to pour cold water on it right now.

That’s some impressive ambition!
There’s no inventory so he wouldn’t be losing much if it didn’t work out.
Why not provide him with a little budget and once it’s gone you won’t add anyone.
What’s the worst that could happen?
Also look around for courses he could do to further his interests.

Read through this with him

www.google.com/amp/s/www.cloudways.com/blog/dropshipping-failures-and-success-rate/amp/

I'd have a good read of the consumer rights surrounding distance sales. Adults frequently lose their shirts because of scammers, underestimating costs and a dozen other problems. A child s much less able to deal with angry customers, people claiming their order never arrived, payment problems, chargebacks etc.
Do you really want to be financially responsible for this? Dropshipping is really risky. It relies far too much on other people's honesty.

This is all utterly alien to me. I have no idea 😂

I would congratulate him but Unless you are going to give him a lot of supervision then I would say no at this point. Dropshipping is an easy concept and makes sense but can come with a lot of issues especially if you pick products which are subject to a high return rate.

Brilliant effort on your sons part though

I also admire his entrepreneurial zeal, but it is a cut-throat business.

Here are some of the risks:

www.ecomdash.com/risks-dropshipping/

More on drop shipping

www.merchantmaverick.com/7-reasons-to-rethink-drop-shipping/

I also suspect that he couldn't do this due to his age. So it would effectively be YOUR business.

He’s a bit young isn’t he? My 13 year old wants to cannibalise our old computers and use his Christmas money to build a bitcoin mining machine. That won’t be happening either.

He’s now got himself a paper round to build up the funds to start his business empire

No to using your credit card. Just no. It's great that he wants to run a business but he doesn't get to put your financial security on the line to do it. He needs to find some other plan.

Bitcoin mining. Oh my god, I hope he's paying the electric bill!

Dropshipping is a bad idea because basically, he's opening a third party store selling junk from China. Once people recieve the complete crap (the sort of stuff you get from Wish), or have waited more than six weeks for their order, they tend to get a bit irate. Yes, some people do well out of it. But some people do well out of MLMs.