Do you think that you're going to be able to compete with the likes of

Kmart and Target? Probably not. This is why I tell people,

do I need to set up an OFX account if I live in Australia but

I'm selling on Amazon USA? No, you don't. If

you're aiming to be big and you're aiming to do seven to

eight figures a year, you're going to want to set it up as a company because

companies Some accountants might say you're too

small to set up as a company now and start off as a sole trader. Accountants

ain't thinking about setting you up to be big. They're just trying to do probably what's

easier for them. I'm Matthew Fraser, and this is

Amazon Ecom Secrets. I'll be sharing with you the secrets

that helped me go from millions in debt to an eight-figure

entrepreneur. If you're ready to escape the nine-to-five and live life

on your terms, let me show you the way. In this episode,

I'm going to talk about something that I think is so, so important but

could be quite boring and it's legal entities. brand

name and store name, Amazon store name, and how it fits in

the context all together, okay? Because so many people get

confused with this topic. Now, I admit I also

got very confused and I want to tell you the story of how

it all came about and I lost money and it took up

a lot of time. So it was my very first product

on Amazon, and I called it Patriot Auto Products.

And if you saw my very first episode, you would have seen I actually

showed a little bit of the shammy back then, yeah? Patriot

Auto Products. Now, here's what I did. I was setting

up my Amazon, and I thought, you know what? My brand name is Patriot Auto

Products. So I'm going to set up my company name

as Patriot Auto Products. And not only did I set up the company like

that, I also set up a trust. So

I had Patriot Autoproducts Trust and Patriot Autoproducts

Pty Ltd working in combination. So

then when I set up my Amazon store name, I also

called that Patriot Autoproducts And

of course, the product itself was called Patriot

Auto Products. So I had three levels of naming

all the same. Now, here's the mistake that I made. Very,

very soon, I stopped selling the

product Patriot Auto Product Chamois. After that, I

had a problem of I've now got a store name which is called Patriot Auto Products and

I've also got a company and a trust set up as Patriot Auto

Products. Bad idea. So this

is what I say to clients who I now see who I'm helping set

up their legal entities for the first time. First

of all, there's three different types, mainly three different types

of entities that you could set up. One's going to be a PTY LTD company.

The second is going to be a trust. And the third is

going to be a sole trader. Sole trader meaning just yourself under

your own name. Now you can actually use your Australian

company, if you're setting up in Australia, you could use your Australian company or

trust or name in a US marketplace. You

don't need to set up a US company in order

to operate in the US or operate a USA based

Amazon store. Now, I always advise

people to keep the company, let's say in this particular case, you're gonna start a

company. I always advise to keep the company name

generic, right? And it could be something like Fraser Importing

Pty Ltd, or Susan Importing Pty

Ltd. the generic name is gonna last the

test of time because what's gonna happen is your very first product is

sometimes not going to last forever. And

instead of having to then change later on the company name

because you've called it, like in my case, Patriot Auto Products,

you can then slot in different brands under

the one legal entity. The other thing you

can do is I would keep your store name fairly

generic too. Now this is your Amazon store name and the

reason why you would want to keep that Amazon store name generic is

therefore it enables you to have multiple different brands under

the store name. Does that make sense? So let me go through that again. Your

company name or your legal entity can be generic,

such as Matthew Fraser Importing Pty

Ltd. Your store name for your Amazon account can

also be generic, something like Matthew Fraser's

Favorite Things or Susan's Favorite Things Store. Your

brand name is going to be, of course, whatever your brand name is going to be. Now, your brand

name is going to be something like Patriot Auto Products,

or it could be Asari Chef Knives. It

could be a range of different things. And you can put many different

brand names within your generic named Amazon

store. The good thing with Amazon, though, is that

at any time you can change your Amazon

store name. You can change your Amazon store name at any time. But

your legal entity, although you could change it, is

going to cost you time and money. Because setting up a, for example,

in Australia, setting up a company is probably going to cost you, if you did it yourself, it'll

probably cost you like $500 or $600. Whereas

if you used an accountant or a solicitor, it could cost anywhere from $2,500 to

$5,000 to set up. So in wrapping up

all that very, very important information, I would

certainly say use a, in my case, I would certainly

do it, an accountant or a solicitor because

the other thing that comes up is people are not sure which legal

entity type they should set up. And guess what? it's going to

vary based on your particular financial and

legal situation, right? So certainly go

and seek independent financial or legal advice

when setting up your your company

or trust name, or even you could set up as a sole trader.

Certainly go get advice. All right guys, so I've now given you an overview of

the topic of legal entities and how it might fit within the Amazon

landscape with your brand name and also your store name. But

I want to dive a bit deeper and I've got some frequently asked questions. The

first question that's come to me is, do I need to set up

an OFX account if I live in Australia, but I'm selling

on Amazon USA? And the answer technically is

no, you don't. So what's going to happen is Amazon pays you

every two weeks. Yeah. And they're going

to pay you into an account that you've already established on

your Amazon seller central account. Now that

could be an Australian account. But where you're going

to benefit though is if you had an intermediary account

such as OFX, an overseas foreign

exchange account. And what that's going to do is it's going to save you some

money in the exchange rate when you're transferring your USA,

US dollars money and sending it back to

your Australian bank account. So the

answer is no, you don't need one. But if you want to save

money, then I would suggest you get a OFX

account. That's the company that I use. If you type into Google OFX, you'll

find them. And then you'll save a little bit of money on the exchange rate

when it's coming back into your Australian account. So therefore, the pathway will be

this. Amazon will pay you in US dollars into your US

OFX account, then OFX will

transfer the money to your Australian account, and that process can actually

happen all seamlessly within a couple of days, and you'll save money. So

when thinking about setting up your OFX account, there's a couple of

things that you need to think about. they do a KYC, which is

know your customer. So you have to have ID, you have to have an

Australian bank account, and there will be a process that

you'll need to go to. So expect to take that somewhere between a week and

two weeks to set up. So the next question is, can I set up initially

as a sole trader and then change to a company later

down the track? The answer is technically yes,

but let me put this to you. I always want to aim as

if you're going to be big. Why settle to be small in

the very beginning? Because it's that limiting mindset, which I absolutely hate.

So in theory, yes, you could set up as a sole trader. But

if you're aiming to be big and you're aiming to do seven

to eight figures a year, you're going to want to set it up as a company. The

reason why you want to set up as a company is because you're going to pay less tax because

companies ultimately have a better tax rate

than you would as a sole trader. Speaking to an accountant is

absolutely beneficial. But some accountants, they're not entrepreneurs

like you. They're not business people like you. So they're not

thinking about the fact that you're going to ultimately be doing

seven and eight figures a year. So think about that

when you're getting advice from your accountant. All right, let's go to the next question. And

it is, do I need a USA bank account when

selling on Amazon USA? And the answer is no. The

only reason why you would need a USA bank account is if

you were setting up your legal entity as an American or

USA legal entity, like an LLC, which

is Limited Liability Company. If you're based in Australia

and you're setting up as a sole trader or a company or a trust in Australia,

then you can simply have your OFX account, which is the middleman

account, which will help with saving money in the exchange rate.

Now, OFX, as I mentioned before, what they will do is they will give

you a virtual bank account. And it's actually a

USA bank account. Mine, for example, is actually Bank of America. So

you can get that through your OFX. You don't have to go or travel to

the USA just to set up a bank account. actually

on the ground there. Let's just say you wanted to set up

a USA bank account. It is possible to do, but you

would have to be an LLC or

a tax resident of USA. That

would really be the only reason why you would be based in

Australia and setting up a bank account in the

USA. But keep in mind too, if you're earning money in

USA through a USA entity, whether it be like a

sole trader or an LLC, you're going to have to file tax returns

in USA as well. So that's something to think about. All right, let's

check out the next question. Does my brand name need to

be the same as my company name? Now, this is something

that I covered in the very, very beginning of this episode, and the answer is no.

My advice, and I give this to all my clients, is don't set

up your company name the same as your brand name.

You want to leave your company name more generic. because

it can kind of travel with you through the journey of the

different brands that potentially you have over the

course of your Amazon journey. And most people who go into

this type of entrepreneurial journey with selling on

Amazon, they're probably going to have more than just one brand.

They're probably going to merge out of the first brand and go to a second brand

as your skills grow. and your knowledge grows and you just find more

and more opportunity in this space. The next question is, how

do I find an Australian accountant who understands Amazon

USA? This is a very, very common question. Australian

accountants don't necessarily understand Amazon

USA, but they do know money

and taxes in Australia. Now, when you're earning

money in the USA and you bring it back through your OFX account or

directly into your Australian bank account, your accounting

will simply relate to your Australian legal

entity and the tax implications around that. The Australian-based

accountant just needs to know how to do taxes in

Australia and hopefully your accountant knows how to do that. Okay,

guys, I hope you got a lot of value out of that kind of

boring topic, but really, really important topic about legal entities and

how it relates to Amazon. Thanks, guys. That comes to the end of

the episode, but I really hope you got a lot of value out of that, talking about legal entities

and how it relates to Amazon. Now, before you go, I've got

something that I want to give to you. Now, this is something that I've

been working on behind the scenes, and it's the exact blueprint of

how I was able to achieve eight figures a year, and

I've put it into a simple eight-step guide, an

eight-step guide to eight figures without even designing your

own product. Can you believe it? Now, I want to give this to you.

All you have to do is go down to the show notes, click on the

link, and get your copy of the eight steps to

eight figures without even designing your own product. Thanks for

tuning into Amazon Ecom Secrets. If you enjoyed

this episode, the best way to show your support is to give

a five-star review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and

make sure to subscribe on YouTube so you don't miss an

episode. You can also find more at I'm

Matthew Fraser on all social media platforms. Thanks