My business is taking a right turn and I am not sure how much to charge people

[beadmama]

I currently sell children's books and was planning to go along that line of retail sales but that seems to be changing.

I currently maintain and run my sisters e-commerce store. That has been from finding a cart service, a designer for the site template, photographing, descriptions and uploading all content for the site, setting up the authorize.net account and all the other stuff for running an online store. She pays me $12 an hour to do this, which I feel is to little but its family and it allows me to work from home.

I now have two other people interested in hiring me to the same thing for them and I don't know how much to charge. I will be finding a web designer to do the site itself as I am okay with web design for myself but not for others. Some of this work will be ongoing like stocking the store and general upkeep of the site.

Any idea of how much should I charge?

Also should I run this income through my existing business account even though its not retail? Does it even matter as far as taxes go?

Any advice is appreciated

[JustVanessa]

I would charge 15-18 hr....but I have no idea about the business aspect as I am just starting mine!

[SleeplessMommy]

I think $60 and hour for setup (or a flat fee!) plus $30 and hour for ongoing support.

[cchrissyy]

I agree with poster #3


As for the accounting, definately don't mingle this with your books/retail account. This is you providing a service, it should be paid right to you and you keep a record of your income and related deductible expenses so you can file it on your personal taxes as indeendant contractor income. You can pick up the Nolo Press book on self-employment to get mroe clarity about these issues.

[mama_mich]

You could always handle it as a minority owner and trade your service for commission on all sales. You would just really want to make sure these people have something they will be selling a lot of!!