Should You Hire Employees for Your Reselling Business?

Many resellers start their business as a hobby or way to earn some extra cash. Starting a resale business is becoming an increasingly popular side hustle and it’s fairly simple to jump into. Although reselling oftentimes starts as a solo endeavor, you will quickly find out that it takes a lot of work. Asking for help from family and friends only goes so far. If you want to expand your resale business, it may be time to hire your first employee.

We go over considerations and questions to ask yourself before hiring employees, and also provide resources and tools if you’re not quite ready to expand the team just yet.

Considerations Before Expanding Your Reselling Business

Firstly, there are many questions to ask yourself before you decide to expand your business. Secondly, hiring employees comes with its pros and cons. Above all, you will have extra hands on deck to grow your operation, but it will also come with added responsibilities of having people to train, manage, and care for.

Here are a few questions to consider:

• What is the current breadth of your operation?
• Do you want to expand into other categories?
• Do you plan to establish a brick-and-mortar location? Get into exporting?
• Do you have the cash flow to hire employees?
• Will they be part-time or full-time? Are you able to provide benefits?

Pros

• You have the potential to delight more customers.
• You can order bigger liquidation lots like LTL and full truckloads. With additional helping hands, you can receive, sort, and process more inventory, which leads to more customers and sales!
• You have more room to specialize. Different employees can handle different areas of the business. Someone can specialize in sourcing inventory, warehouse management, shipping operations, etc.
• You can grow your business faster.

Cons

• There are important tax documents and paperwork to maintain.
• You or someone has to handle payroll and accounting.
• There will need to be training and supervision.
• You will invest a good chunk of money into paying salaries and taxes.

How Do You Hire Employees?

Certainly, such a big decision is going to come with its own set of laws and regulations you will need to follow. Take it step-by-step, and remember, many people have gone through the same process! For detailed instructions on hiring employees, visit the SBA’s (Small Business Administration) website.

1. Register your business

It’s likely you’ve already completed this step if you’re considering growing your team. Also, if you’re sourcing through B-Stock, we require your business to have a resale certificate in order to register for our private, B2B liquidation auction marketplaces. For more information on registering your business, check out the SBA’s guide here!

2. Get an employee identification number

You must obtain an EIN (employer identification number) from the IRS to hire employees. This nine-digit number is used for tax purposes and important documentation. Check online for your state’s labor department registration process if you don’t already have one.

3. Withholding taxes

You will be responsible for setting up withholding taxes for your employees. Paying taxes and filling out the appropriate paperwork will keep you in good legal standing. Be on top of these three big ones:

• Form W-4: Filled out by new employees, outlines how much federal income tax they want withheld from their pay.
• Federal Wage and Tax Statement: Filled out by employers, details each employee’s earnings and taxes withheld. Employees receive a copy of this come tax season, and you must also send one to the Social Security Administration.
• State taxes: Filled out by employers, state withholding forms vary by state.

Always check federal and state requirements. Visit this page for more tax information.

4. Insurance and benefits

Determine what kind of workers’ compensation insurance you will have in the case that workers get injured or sick in the workplace. 401k plans, disability insurance, leave benefits, and unemployment insurance, as well as healthcare benefits, should all be considered. Some will be required and other employee benefits are optional.

5. Establish pay periods, holiday/vacation policies, etc.

Next, you will need to nail down pay periods and holiday/vacation policies.  This is necessary to meet quarterly and annual tax requirements.

6. Payroll system

Set up a payroll system or find an accountant if you don’t want to handle this yourself. In other words, it’s better to automate this and avoid any further headaches.

7. Find and interview candidates

You should be able to describe the role you are hiring for and list a complete job description with the required skills and responsibilities. For a reselling business, you might want to consider someone with previous retail experience. This can be easily shared online or through local outlets. After that, the interviewing and hiring begins!

8. Dot your I’s and cross your T’s

That is to say, there are actually a few last steps in hiring an employee. So think of this step as a catch-all. For instance, running background checks on candidates (and what the rules and restrictions are here), reporting new hires to state employment agencies, and ensuring eligibility to work in the U.S. Some records are required to stay on file for a certain period of time.

On the other hand, you can also work with independent contractors. They won’t be considered employees and you will need separate documentation like 1099-MISC.

In short, there are several requirements to be met and maintained when hiring an employee. And when it comes to federal and state labor laws, you don’t want to miss any steps. Please consult the appropriate qualified professional for specific tax and legal advice. We hope these general steps help you on your hiring journey!

Resources & Tools for Your Reselling Business

If hiring your own employee sounds like too much to take on, then better to hold off instead of rushing it. However, there are plenty of reseller tools out there that can help organize and automate your operation in the meantime. Here are a few resources your reselling business can utilize!

QuickBooks

QuickBooks makes professional bookkeeping simple and affordable. There are often promotional rates for new users, so be sure to check for coupon codes and sales. And you can also get packages that manage expenses for freelancers, handle payroll, and even have live bookkeeping experts at your beck and call. Read more pros and cons for QuickBooks here!

Pay a virtual assistant

There are tasks you can hire a virtual assistant for. Especially if you’re running an online resale business, the mundane and repetitive administrative tasks can slow you down and take away from time better-spent sourcing and reselling inventory.

For example, a virtual assistant can help with:

• Create and share your product listings
• Help with social media posting
• Handle customer service requests
• Coordinate shipping logistics
• Inventory management

Fiverr

Fiverr is a great resource for contracting freelance work. Whatever your budget is, you can find professional services being offered at just about any price point. More importantly, it’s project-based pricing, so you don’t have to worry about hourly rates. Your payments are always protected and you approve all work performed. Creating a professional look and feel for your website elevates your reselling business; plus, help with backend operations allows you to scale quickly and efficiently.

You can contract work in the areas of:

• SEO
• WordPress
• Graphic Design
• E-Commerce Management
• Data Entry
• Marketing
• Social Media

TaskRabbit

TaskRabbit is like having a personal handyman at your fingertips. You can quickly enlist help from “Taskers” on the platform for a variety of to-list tasks. Need help unloading pallets? Breaking down lots? Organizing your storage space? Putting together furniture? There is a Tasker for that. You can chat, pay, and leave tips for Taskers all through the app and even get same-day help. This is a great solution if you’re in a bind and need a quick helping hand. Taskers in your area will have varying rates with reviews for you to check out.

Here’s what they can do:

• Help with receiving shipments
• Delivery service
• Heavy lifting & moving
• Furniture assembly
• Carpentry & construction
• Repair & restoration services
• Organization
• Office admin

In addition to these resources, be sure to check out more useful posts from our Reseller Tools of the Trade series. We cover selling on Shopify and the basics of selling on eBay, bookkeeping with QuickBooks, tracking data with Airtable, and more.

For whatever stage your resale business is in, B-Stock can help. We work with dozens of well-known retailers (including nine of the top 10), who sell their excess, overstock, and customer-returned inventory on our liquidation marketplaces. B-Stock is the largest online marketplace in the world, supplying buyers with valuable products and trusted service. Become a B-Stock buyer today!