# Opening an online store in Spain



## expatrocks (Jan 16, 2012)

I have an online store in the US and I’d like to open one in Spain. Which would be the easiest way to do this? My wife is Spanish so I could probably get Spanish residency if that would be helpful. It looks like the easiest business entity would be the Empresario Individual. Do I need to actually form a Spanish business entity or can I do business in Spain as a US company?


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## XTreme (May 17, 2008)

I have US based businesses running online stores/business sales portals targetted towards Spain (obviously a couple of Delaware loopholes in there too  ).

It doesn't matter where you're located and in fact with the Google webmaster option to specify the country you want to target, there's absolutely no necessity to have the site hosted in Spain now.


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## expatrocks (Jan 16, 2012)

Thanks, but I actually want to open a warehouse in Spain to ship and receive products. I would hire one employee for the warehouse to start. I should have mentioned that before.


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## XTreme (May 17, 2008)

I'd locate an empty warehouse unit (no shortage of those) on an industrial estate.....staying away from the big cities because prices would be much higher.

With your wife being Spanish I'd put everything in her name.....it'll make it much easier. Then hire someone as self employed. Info on that HERE!


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## Abyss-Rover (Mar 17, 2012)

It could be worth investigating the best area for logistics, for this warehouse. Getting stock in and out of Spain could be effected greatly by this.


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## Stravinsky (Aug 12, 2007)

Spain is such a big place. Having one warehouse is naturally going to increase distribution costs to certain parts of Spain

As someone who was in the industry of transport, unless you are talking about huge stocks of product, the most cost effective way of doing this is to rent warehouse space from a national distribution company. You're likely to get good storage and handling rates based on the fact that you are also giving them distribution work.

In the UK we had offices in London, Peterborough and Birmingham but we shared warehouse space in two of those locations because it was better than taking on the lease on a large warhouse

Other than that, you will end up taking on a warehouse in one location and then (presumably) having to cover distribution from that point throughout the whole of Spain


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

Stravinsky said:


> Spain is such a big place. Having one warehouse is naturally going to increase distribution costs to certain parts of Spain
> 
> As someone who was in the industry of transport, unless you are talking about huge stocks of product, the most cost effective way of doing this is to rent warehouse space from a national distribution company. You're likely to get good storage and handling rates based on the fact that you are also giving them distribution work.
> 
> ...


I agree, but as the OP comes from the US and is currently living in Australia he may not think this is relevant!


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## Stravinsky (Aug 12, 2007)

Pesky Wesky said:


> I agree, but as the OP comes from the US and is currently living in Australia he may not think this is relevant!



He will, when he finds long range transport costs and warehouse costs may be either eating up his profits or making him uncompetitive .... having said that I dont know his business, so I can only tell it as I know having been involved in the transport business


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## expatrocks (Jan 16, 2012)

> obviously a couple of Delaware loopholes in there too


I'm curious about that if you can share the info.



> staying away from the big cities because prices would be much higher


That's a good point, just outside of Madrid is bound to be much cheaper than right in Madrid. I need to get more familiar with the efficiency/inefficiency of Correos and other Spanish shipping carriers before I'll know if being just outside of Madrid will slow down inbound or outbound package delivery compared to being in Madrid.



> It could be worth investigating the best area for logistics, for this warehouse. Getting stock in and out of Spain could be effected greatly by this.


I would think Madrid is the place to be for this. It's in the geographic, economic, and industrial center of the country. I'm in Madrid now BTW.



> Spain is such a big place. Having one warehouse is naturally going to increase distribution costs to certain parts of Spain


Spain is small, tiny really.  I wish I only had to cover that much ground in the US. Yesterday I went from the east coast to the center in an hour and a half... by land!



> finds long range transport costs and warehouse costs may be either eating up his profits or making him uncompetitive


My US warehouse is in California and inbound/outbound shipping to/from anywhere in the US is not prohibitively expensive (including Hawaii thanks to what must be government-subsidized USPS rates across half the Pacific). I do plan to move the warehouse to Missouri at some point to speed up and reduce the cost of inbound/outbound shipping, but for my US business the warehouse location isn't a dealbreaker at all. I definitely need to do a serious analysis of Spanish shipping options though. Warehouse costs in the US are also what I would consider minimal, but I need to research how this compares in Spain.

In the US, all of my suppliers are US wholesalers. They are either manufacturers or importers. I'm not decided on what to sell in Spain yet, but I may need to import from another European country. If I don't, my options will surely be extremely limited, but that may be OK to start. I try to stock the least amount I can in the US, and if I import to Spain from elsewhere in Europe, I may need to stock a lot more in order to minimize shipping costs and that will be a big change. Is shipping from the UK or France to Spain very expensive?

Does anyone know how to get an .es domain name?

EDIT:


> Travelling is about you - not the place


Brilliant....


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## Stravinsky (Aug 12, 2007)

expatrocks said:


> I would think Madrid is the place to be for this. It's in the geographic, economic, and industrial center of the country. I'm in Madrid now BTW.
> 
> 
> Spain is small, tiny really.  I wish I only had to cover that much ground in the US. Yesterday I went from the east coast to the center in an hour and a half... by land!
> ...


Yes, compared to the US Spain is small. That doesnt mean though that transport costs are small in Spain. 

I agree, you need to do some serious analysis. I can only tell you my experience of owning a company that shipped to Spain, France, Switzerland, Germany & Scandinavia. We originally for instance took the option of one depot in Paris, and one depot in Barcelona. Transport costs for the South of France and for the West and South of Spain could be quite expensive. Of course, as I previously said, i dont know your business and what you are shipping. If you are talking small parcels then you have more of a chance, but anything larger that which has to be delivered fairly promptly then it takes a lot of coordination and cost doing it from one distribution point.

Warehouse costs, here's one plucked from the internet, but maybe too large for what you want, but gives you an idea in the Madrid area for that size

Lease (more than 5 years)
Monthly price: € 14.000
Code: ER-8636937
Country	Espana
Region	Madrid
Nearest city	Coslada
Total space	3859 m2
Living space	1607 m2
Heating	Electric
Status	Not new
Condition	7
Year of built	2002
Tear and wear	Used actively
Parking place	68
Plottage	3859 m2


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## Stravinsky (Aug 12, 2007)

Stravinsky said:


> Yes, compared to the US Spain is small. That doesnt mean though that transport costs are small in Spain.
> 
> I agree, you need to do some serious analysis. I can only tell you my experience of owning a company that shipped to Spain, France, Switzerland, Germany & Scandinavia. We originally for instance took the option of one depot in Paris, and one depot in Barcelona. Transport costs for the South of France and for the West and South of Spain could be quite expensive. Of course, as I previously said, i dont know your business and what you are shipping. If you are talking small parcels then you have more of a chance, but anything larger that which has to be delivered fairly promptly then it takes a lot of coordination and cost doing it from one distribution point.
> 
> ...



Oh, I forgot to mention, if you want an .es domain name
ES Domain Name Registration - Spanish Domain Names | Europe Registry


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## Guest (Jun 8, 2012)

when we first visited Spain last year, now back for the 3rd time we felt that having additional income was going to be needed if we wanted to live here part time. *****************
There is no better business for expats than online, so we can be at the beach or Bembibre. We don't mean this as an advert...just and fyi of what we did to help us have it all..


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## expatrocks (Jan 16, 2012)

> If you are talking small parcels then you have more of a chance, but anything larger that which has to be delivered fairly promptly then it takes a lot of coordination and cost doing it from one distribution point.


Fortunately the stuff I'm used to selling is small, light, and non-perishable. I still don't know what I'd sell in Spain but it would need to fit that same description. I really appreciate your insight Stravinsky, thank you.


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## expatrocks (Jan 16, 2012)

Stravinsky, I forgot to comment on the warehouse costs. I call my US warehouse a warehouse but it's really just an office set up like a very small warehouse. I pay about $250/month for it. I would want to find something on a small scale like that to begin with. Maybe less than $500/month. I plan to use fotocasa.es for this.


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## Stravinsky (Aug 12, 2007)

No problem 

There are quite a few parcels carriers I see in Spain and the one that jumps to mind is this one that specialises in parcles up to 80 kgs all over Spain. Just as an aside you always see an MRW van in a Pedro Almodovar film, I reckon they are on commission 

MRW leading company in the express transport of packages of up to 80 kg from Andorra, Spain, Gibraltar, Portugal and Venezuela for national and international consignments

They have branches all over Spain and also do track and trace


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

MRW are also used by Amazon for their free deliveries UK to Spain


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## XTreme (May 17, 2008)

On the subject of domain names....only buy a .es if you plan to do business ONLY in Spain. And even then, a com or net is better as they're TLD's and carry more weight.

In short only buy an es if there's nothing else out there.....what's more important is keywords in the title rather than something that means nothing. Also never put English words in an es domain.....that's the kiss of death.

I always use Domain Name Registration, Domain Transfers. Search and register European Domains and domain names of the world. Free domain DNS and free Email services included. for any es domains! DO NOT use jerkoffs like 1&1 because they will restrict use to only their piss poor servers.....so steer clear.


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## expatrocks (Jan 16, 2012)

Thanks for the tip on MRW. I bet I end up using them.



XTreme said:


> On the subject of domain names....only buy a .es if you plan to do business ONLY in Spain. And even then, a com or net is better as they're TLD's and carry more weight.


.es is a TLD too. Google won't give more weight to a .com than an .es, at least not for Spanish search results. I agree that I should consider an .es only if I plan to do business in Spain only.

What does everyone think of .es vs. .com from a marketing perspective in Spain? Do you think Spanish people are more likely to visit an .es site than a .com site because they know it pertains to them? I don't think I've seen any .com site marketed in Spain, but lots of .es.



XTreme said:


> what's more important is keywords in the title rather than something that means nothing.


Keywords in the title tag are great, but they aren't related to the domain name. Do you mean keywords in the domain name?



XTreme said:


> I always use Domain Name Registration, Domain Transfers. Search and register European Domains and domain names of the world. Free domain DNS and free Email services included. for any es domains! DO NOT use jerkoffs like 1&1 because they will restrict use to only their piss poor servers.....so steer clear.


OK, that's a vote for europeregistry.es and eurodns.com. It sounds like I would be OK with either. I started to go through the process for one of them to learn about the requirements but they wanted me to sign up. Are there any special requirement for registering an .es domain name?


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## XTreme (May 17, 2008)

.es is a TLD _only_ as relates to Spain....nothing else. So you pigeonhole yourself from the off.....but if you're OK with that no problem.

And yes....I was referring to keywords in the domain name itself. In this respect you will have more choice on the .es cos the best ones with com and net are long gone.

My experience with .com v .es is com wins out everytime in terms of end users perspective and though processes. Plus some years ago I tested two identical sites (one com and one es) for search engine potential....the com was way ahead in the way it was evaluated.

Up until about 7 0r 8 years ago you had to be in Spain for an es....now it's open to anybody.


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## Guest (Jun 9, 2012)

if you sell in Spain, or really any other country, if you use ccTLD for this example, .es or es. your site has a much better search organic than a .com. You will compete with all other .coms for the same organics, adwords and adsense.

Even more important if you have two or more gTLD's i.e .com .co .biz .net .org etc...and you use the same content for both or more sites, your content will be deemed duplicate content, and that will doom you. The only way to avoid this is using ccTLD's, and I do not reccomend trying google geo target in webmaster tools to try and avoid this.

/SNIP/

as for warehousing, why not just drop ship? Then you can be on the beach and do very little but sent fractura's to the various mgf/distributors.


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## Solwriter (Jan 10, 2012)

expatrocks said:


> Are there any special requirement for registering an .es domain name?


As Extreme says, nowadays there are no requirements that you live in Spain to own an es.
The main requirement I have found is on renewal (and this applies to all other country specific domains, like .co.uk for example).

Whereas your normal dotcom, dotnet, dotorg, etc can be renewed on the date it expires (or even for a few days after this), a country specific domain name usually has to be renewed within one month _before_ it expires.
But that may apply to where you purchase the domain name in the first place... 
So just a heads up really.


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## expatrocks (Jan 16, 2012)

> if you have two or more gTLD's i.e .com .co .biz .net .org etc...and you use the same content for both or more sites, your content will be deemed duplicate content, and that will doom you. The only way to avoid this is using ccTLD's


I didn't know ccTLD's avoid duplicate content issues. Thanks for that.



> as for warehousing, why not just drop ship?


Profit and control.



> Then you can be on the beach and do very little


This applies even with your own warehouse. All you need is employees.



> a country specific domain name usually has to be renewed within one month before it expires.
> But that may apply to where you purchase the domain name in the first place...


Does anyone know more about this? Is there a good registrar for .es domains that doesn't require this?



> What does everyone think of .es vs. .com from a marketing perspective in Spain? Do you think Spanish people are more likely to visit an .es site than a .com site because they know it pertains to them?


I'm quoting myself here. I'm really interested in people's persective on this.


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

Quote:
"What does everyone think of .es vs. .com from a marketing perspective in Spain? Do you think Spanish people are more likely to visit an .es site than a .com site because they know it pertains to them? I don't think I've seen any .com site marketed in Spain, but lots of .es."

Personally, if I want a site in Spain I first put a .es suffix or for uk I use .co.uk since it saves me getting lots of American sites that I don't want. It is only after getting no joy from country specific that I use .com Of course in these circumstances I am not wasting my time using search engines.


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## Abyss-Rover (Mar 17, 2012)

expatrocks said:


> I would think Madrid is the place to be for this. It's in the geographic, economic, and industrial center of the country. I'm in Madrid now BTW.


I have to agree with your description, but, if your goods are arriving by sea, they would have to travel into Madrid first, to then be shipped out of Madrid.

Just a thought.


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## Stravinsky (Aug 12, 2007)

Abyss-Rover said:


> I have to agree with your description, but, if your goods are arriving by sea, they would have to travel into Madrid first, to then be shipped out of Madrid.
> 
> Just a thought.


That doesnt matter. Goods shipped from abroad more often than not come by container, and presumably they would be placed in a Madrid destined container meaning they would just be offloaded in a local depot. It wouldnt be much more expensive than shipping it to Barcelona, for instance.

It doesnt mean, for instance, that goods coming from abroad would just be discharged at the sea port like it was back in the day. There are local CFS's throughout most countries now in major centres


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## beatricemcgraw01 (Nov 8, 2017)

I suggest you to stay in USA.


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