Looking for some advice..

[550sy]

Hello everyone this is my frist time posting anythinmg on this forum and my first time openning a business.

I'm openning a webstore and in the process of registering my company name I have two question for people who may have done this businesss venture already or who are currently running a webstore.

first question is that when registering my company name should i incorporate the name or just simply register the name please keep in mind this will be a one man show for now and i will not have a partner or workers.

second is involving my company logo, it will be on my website ofcourse and other marketing tools such as advertisements, t-shirts and stationary..now should that me trademarked or copyrighted?

as i said in the beginning im still new to starting up a business specially an e-commerce one so these are questions that i have been thinking about.

thanks for any help it would be appericated especially the advice anyone has to offer.

[chanson]

As far as the incorporation part goes. It depends a lot on what your short and long-term plans are for the business. In the end you should talk to an accountant and a lawyer in regards to this. However if it is just you, and your not starting out with 10's of thousands of dollars in capital then registering as a sole prop for the time being should be fine to get things going.

You don't have to trademark your name right off the bat no. Once you register the company name, and the domain name and start using the company name in the public it technically becomes a copyright and intellectual property. From what I understand slogans and other written material are more vulnerable to being snagged by someone else then an actual company name. In the end, like everything else, talk to an expert advisor.

Good luck with your business!!

Chris

[ronrule]

1. Incorporate the name. It makes it easier down the road to separate business income from personal, eliminates the tax issues, and you'll need a real corporation to get a merchant account so you can accept credit cards online.

2. A logo would be trademarked, it protects you from anyone else using the same or similar mark. Any other original artwork or written content on your site could be copyrighted, but you don't actually have to register it. You can still use the © symbol, very few websites that show it have actually registered with the Copyright Office.