Okay, being thinking about this, If you set up the site/store, your merchants would have to sign an independent contractor agreement. That would take care of anyone in the US who would pay income taxes, they are responsible for collecting and saving any sales tax needed and removing a certain amount to cover their income tax. It would also get you of the hook legally for anything to do with their stores, HOWEVER, you must state that in the TOS, with your DISCLAIMER, and make it something people MUST READ and agree to before being allowed on/in the site/store.

As for carts, Paypal has a fair shopping cart setup, each merchant would be responsible for setting up their shopping cart through Paypal. For those of you outside the U.S. you would need to have an e-mail and bank account in the U.S. to sell and collect through Paypal. A matter of calling and establishing an accout with a US Bank, there is a list of 'international' banks that do business everywhere...pick a prominant one, or there abouts.

Then you would need to set up accounts on your server for merchants to upload their stuff (separate FTPs) to their store.

Questions, although this is very alturistic;

• who pays for the disk storage and bandwidth this would entail every month?
• What if the host goes out of business
• what will the up time be
• who would be managing the problems that would definitely arise everyday?
• Will your host allow this type of e-commerce?
• what is your TOS on nudity in the store(something that can get your site shutdown by Paypal)

Just some things think about....but it's a good idea, that's why I sell my stuff on my site cheaper, no commission to pay....=)

Bryce Forum Coordinator....

Vision is the Art of seeing things invisible...