Happy New Years to all of our listeners out there! For today's episode of the Ecomcrew podcast, I have a chat with Paul Rafelson about the Online Merchant's Guild and any updates that came to fruition within the last year. Other than that, we go over various topics that will definitely interest online sellers within the US such as several tax issues, why you should join the Guild, and the influx of China sellers within Amazon.

If you're new to the podcast and haven't heard about the Online Merchant's Guild, it is a non-profit organization that gives sellers the opportunity to voice out their concerns on various legal issues, with an aim to make the business climate better for online sellers, whether on Amazon or on their own Shopify site. In our last podcast episode with them, we talked about Sales Tax — why it's such a complicated subject, the various states' position on Sales Tax, and why it led to the birth of the Guild in the first place.

I highly encourage all of our listeners, whether you're a seller on Amazon or on your own Shopify site, to join the Online Merchant's Guild, because while we are used to solving various legal problems on our own, this is just something that we can't do by ourselves; it will be costly and ineffective. We need to grow our strength in numbers and support each other to make this online business climate better for sellers.

As always, here are the topics that Paul and I go over with timestamps:

• Recap over the last year — (5:19)
• The Impact of the Online Merchant's Guild — (7:56)
• The Issue of Back Taxes — (9:16)
• Income Taxes and the States that Enforce Them — (11:02)
• The Landscape of Taxes Today — (15:41)
• Why You Should Join The Online Merchant's Guild — (19:31)
• Addressing the Influx of Chinese Sellers on Amazon — (20:19)
• The Promise of Online Merchant's Guild — (25:06)
• The Guild is For Everyone, Not Just Amazon Sellers — (28:59)
• Aiming for Amazon Independence — (29:49)

If you want more information on the Online Merchant's Guild, feel free to send us an email at [email protected] or visit their website to start making a change today. We'd love to hear from you.