Helping My Daughter Start an Online Shop

[daugtherwantsashop]

Hi everyone,
I’m reaching out for some advice. My daughter is 15 and has always said she wants to start working as soon as she turns 16 (she’s already been volunteering in a charity shop for nearly two years). A couple of months ago, she surprised us by asking if she could try opening her own online shop instead.
She’s really thrown herself into the idea, she’s chosen a very specific product line, designed a logo, and has even been experimenting with building a shop on Shopify. I’d love to support her initiative, as I think it could be an amazing learning opportunity. The challenge is that both my husband and I work full-time, and we honestly don’t have much experience with running an online shop.
Our rough plan is to stock some products at home (we have storage space) and possibly look at drop shipping too. That said, she’s really keen on adding personal touches to each order (like handwritten cards or little gifts), which might be tricky with dropshipping. We also don’t want to invest huge amounts of money upfront, so we’re trying to keep things small and manageable.
What I’d really appreciate is hearing from anyone who has experience ,what worked for you, what to watch out for, and any advice on getting started. I’m also not sure about the legal side of things, whether she can officially run a business at her age, or whether it would need to go in our names until she’s older.
I know this might not end up being a big money-maker, and that’s fine. Even if she only sells a little, I think it could be a great learning experience for her,but I want to make sure we set it up in a way that’s realistic and sustainable.
Thanks so much for reading, and for any advice you can share!

Where is she getting the products from? Having your own online shop is a bigger undertaking than selling on a platform such as Etsy or Amazon if you meet the criteria?
if I were looking to sell a product online these days leveraging a platform rather than building and maintaining my own website would be the way to rest an idea.

Test an idea!

My daughter sold bracelets and key chains on Etsy for about 2 years for a bit of pocket money but she had one really nasty customer (accidentally spelled a name wrong on something) got a barrage of abuse and I made her close it down. It really upset her. Etsy however is a great start to test the waters even Vinted I do know someone who goes to boot sales and buys things ridiculously cheap then cleans them up and sells them on Vinted at a marked up price.

What sort of things is she thinking of selling. Etsy, Ebay and Vinted are probably the easiest. You have to take the fees in consideration with Etsy but I am very surprised how many sales I have had the last year since opening my shop considering how many sellers there are on there. You can register as a sole trader at 16. To do a tax return you have to earn around £12500 a year before you start paying tax but still have to submit one. If you are on universal credit this can make a difference. You may have include it in your income. Haven't done drop shipping before so can't comment on that.

I'd say avoid dropshipping if you can. Fulfillment delays/mistakes can cause all sorts of issues including poor reviews, chargebacks and loss of the payment provider. Having full control of the stock yourself is a much safer way to conduct business. Other things if she wants to set up her own website:

• shopify's payment provider is stripe, she may need to be 18 to open a stripe account
• get her to buy and read a book on SEO (one that's been published in 2025)
• good websites to learn SEO online include Ahrefs, Semrush and Moz.
• paid marketing is likely going to be the biggest expense, she will need to get to grips with Google ads (assuming her mark up is enough to afford the cost of each acquisition which can be high)
• social media marketing done in tandem, again it's a skill that needs to be learned, usually a mix of free and paid
• get her to read some business books e.g. the personal MBA, diary of a CEO etc - look on Amazon for books with great reviews
• customers can be an absolute nightmare and can really affect mental health, make sure she is resilient before she starts dealing with the general public and that she takes proper time off.

Best of luck to her. This attitude bodes well for the future! If it doesn't work, I learned so much from failure. Each failure was a positive.

Thank you everyone for the responses, very grateful for the support!

My girl is looking to sell merch and albums that would be shipped in from Korea (not the cheapest passion to support, unfortunately!). I don’t think Etsy would work for this type of business? and my daughter pointed out that her potential customers usually avoid Amazon because of the risk of fake products. Honestly, I don’t have much idea about this market, so I’m relying on her insight here.

She has already put together a list of around 50 different products (2 units of each, so about 100 items in total), which would cost nearly £2,000 once deliveries and fees are included. I’m prepared to lend her this money (though I don’t expect to see it back really) and I’ve explained clearly that, at least for the first few months, she’ll need to reinvest every pound she makes straight back into the business to build up stock. Our hope is to get everything set up as soon as possible so she might be able to sell a few items in time for Christmas.

JustPinkFinch
Thank you so much for all the advice. We’re planning to pick up a couple of books to learn more, and we’ve already started looking into social media advertising as a way to get her shop noticed.
I’d prefer to avoid dropshipping if possible, as we’d really like to add a personal touch to orders and have some control over the sales, but at the same time it seems like it might be the only realistic way to get started without having to spend a fortune on upfront stock.

BeMellowAquaSquid
I’m so sorry to read that a bad experience has brought an end to your daughter’s business journey. Unfortunately, there are some really unpleasant people out there

Ah op you must be so proud, good on her. Is this something the princes trust can help with?

No business advice, but you sound like a brilliant supportive mum and best of luck to your daughter! 😊

for that product and likely audience she may want to consider tiktok shop initially - much less marketing to learn and she will inherently know what her target audience want to know as (presumably) she is selling to people like her.

Keep it simple - if it can be a real passion project and only using platforms she understands initially the learning curve is much easier. With only two of each product there are inherent problems with many traditional marketing channels which are best avoided if possible, and splitting her efforts if she doesn't need to is a waste of time.

also - if she's selling vinyl - have a really good think about packaging as breakages will kill her profit and she won't have stock to send replacements so her reviews would be bad.

and be ware of the VAT threshold and basic accounting if she starts to scale

Be aware that if she turns over more than £1000 in a taxi year, she will have to register as self employed. Her age doesn't exempt her.

You need to tell your home insurer and mortgage company or landlord that you are operating a business from home.

Potentially she will need product liability insurance. If she is importing products this may be tricky to get.

Has she taken into account customs duties and VAT for the cost of importing?

Do you or her understand the legalities of selling online? You must declare your trading from address online, which will be your home. Read up on the Consumer Contract Regulations which covers most of it.

It isn't as simple as setting up a website and people will come and buy from it. Unless you are investing thousands into advertising, it can take years before the website is trusted by the likes of Google and gets pushed up on search results. TikTok shop could be a good way for her to start instead, but she needs to research if others are doing the same thing. Sometimes you can be undercutting other businesses in order to make pennies, and I mean literally just pennies. eBay could also be an option. You say buyers avoid the likes of Amazon because of fakes, as a shiny new business how is she going to prove authenticity and get buyers to trust her?

Don't get involved with drop shipping unless you are absolutely sure of a reputable supplier. Most of them aren't, but it's your daughter who will get the bad reviews.

Ive been selling onine since the early 2000s. I sell antiques and vintage - never new goods. Online selling is not for the sensitive and particularly not if you are selling international. My biggest market is the USA but US buyers can be very abrupt. It is often their wayto be direct but can come across to us as rude.

I have a series of template responses which I use to deal with common situations such as delayed or missing orders, items which arrive damaged, customs charges. instructions for returns and so on. I simply adapt and paste in the responses. This helps me to distance myself emotionally from the buyer while getting the relevent facts across. I do customer service, not servility and aim to sound professional. I do not hesitate to block rude buyers.

Platforms like Etsy Ebay and Amazon can be very complex and are not for the faint hearted.

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No need to tell anyone about working from home if you don't have customers visiting etc. Bit of an urban myth.

Please don't share misinformation like this. It can very easily invalidate home insurance policies if you are running a business from home and have stock on the premises, so it is imperative you tell your insurer and if you have one, landlord. It can also break the terms of a mortgage. If you use a room solely for business use you are also liable for business rates. It is not an urban myth. The last thing you want is an insurance claim and you find you have no policy anymore.

She's selling a few goods online as a side hustle, not opening a hotel?

@daugtherwantsashopby all means explore these issues if you wish.

Stock is stored at home. I worked in insurance claims for a long time. They aren't lying when they say it invalidates your policy if undeclared. I watched people left with no cover for major events due to undeclared businesses operated from home. Imagine finding out your insurance is invalid for a house fire because you were naive enough to think the rules didn't apply to you because some idiot told them on the internet it didn't matter.

I run a business from home that holds stock. There is only one home insurer in the UK I have found who will cover me because of the value of the stock I hold (£70K odd). It costs me over £1K a year to insure my modest home for buildings and contents. Then my business stock insurance is another £1.5K on top of that.

I have no idea if I would have more insurance options if the stock value was say £5K. But business use inc stock holding definitely definitely needs declaring to insurers.

One room solely for business use does NOT trigger business rates provided the business sends goods by post, has no other staff and no customers visit.

www.gov.uk/introduction-to-business-rates/working-at-home