Changing ownership of Amazon Seller account after incorporation?

[murrihurri]

Hello all,

I have a question about Amazon seller accounts and small businesses. First time small business owner, so any help would be appreciated.

I'm currently working on a project and it's almost ready to go. I'd really like to start it as a sole proprietorship and, you know... start actually making money. I'd like to put my products on Amazon using a seller's account. This would be relatively easy for me right now; as far as I can tell, sole proprietorships are a lot easier to start and maintain than a corporation, and I'm kind of low on money at the moment.

But what happens if I want to incorporate further down the road? To change from a sole proprietorship to something like an LLC? Would it be possible to change the "owner" of the Amazon seller account to my new company? After all, it would still be the same everything--same products, etc--but the business itself would have changed.

If it's not possible, I think perhaps I'll have to just bite the bullet and incorporate from the start. I'm just worried that would end up costing me a lot more right now, especially as I'm going to be moving to a different state in a few months.

Anybody know about this? As I said above, any help would be appreciated.

[vangogh]

Welcome to the forum murrihurri. I'm not really sure as I don't sell through Amazon, but I'm thinking it's less of an issue than you think. If you set up the seller account using your business name then the only difference later would be the LLC wouldn't be there. You probably wouldn't need to change anything.

I would think there's some info on Amazon about changing your store name. It's possible once set up you can't, but I wouldn't think it would be a major issue for your business. Just set everything up now under a business name. You'll have to register the name with your state now and again when you move. The cost varies from state to state, but it's usually not a lot. You might even look into registering in both states to make sure you can get the name in both. Look for the website for the Secretary of State in both states. That's usually where you register the name.

You can change to an LLC when you move and I think everything will be ok.