One LLC for all e-commerce stores?

[MakeItHappen]

So i plan to open my first e-commerce store and if all works out well i will open in the future.
Should i just open one LLC and combine all e-commerce stores in it or should i use one LLC for every store if my goal is to sell the stores in a couple years?
I don't have a clue but it seems like having only one LLC would be the easiest action right now but i don't know if this will have a negative effect when you sell?

So option A:
MakeItHappen e-commerce LLC (one LLC for all stores)

option B:
product X brand LLC (for every store it's own LLC)

What is the best option for the future if you want to sell some day or doesn't it really matter?

 

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[JeniusLLC]

My recommendation would be to open one LLC and later just sell the web properties. It's just like selling real estate.

Think of it as:
yourdomain.com owned by yourbusiness, LLC

instead of

yourhouse owned by yourfamily

The ownership can change for the property with a little paperwork.
This is done on sedo.com and flippa.com quite a bit.

Hope this helps.

 

[Knowledge Kick]

I personally only have one LLC. I don't think you need to do a LLC for each website. However, if you had different types of websites then maybe you could use multiple LLCs. For instance, one LLC for your ecommerce sites and another LLC for your other websites.

 

[LightHouse]

You need to talk to someone who knows what is best for your business really. The LLC portion is more about your protection as a company vs implications of selling sometihng later. You are putting the cart before the horse.

Now a smaller thing to consider is your merchant account. If you use the main business name to register, you have to remember that the line item on the customers CC statement will show that name. So if you have lots of different stores, you might want to be generic:

MIH stores, llc
Make It Happen Online, llc
etc

If you are focused in an area the more targeted you are the less chance people freak out when they see the charge on their statement and it doesn't have the web address on it where they actually ordered from.

Your other option is to create a single LLC and file DBA's for each store and open separate merchant accounts for each, but that is pretty costly. I would run that option after you are doing significant volume or when chargebacks become more frequent.

 

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