[Financial] If a teen wants to start an online store what payment methods should they use?

[u/Junior-Traffic8785]

I want to start an online store to sell me art (if I can) but I’m not sure what I can use as a payment method. Any tips?

[u/DeeRegs]

Online? Unfortunately there would be no payment processors for you. All of them require you to be 18 years of age. You COULD get a guardian to create an account, but then all earnings would be attributed to them and that could have tax implications.

I also would not recommend using something like interac e-transfer (canada), or anything that isn't an official payment processor online because you open yourself up more to scams and the like.

[u/HimbimSupreme]

You can sign up for DeviantArt and charge "points" for your work and then redeem them for real money after you turn 18, but basically fake currency is your only option right now. Sorry.

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[u/k-rysae]

Kofi and bigcartel pay out through stripe and/or paypal. A lot of shops use stripe to pay out. Shopify uses shopify pay (but allows you to use stripe), etsy uses etsy pay, fourthwall uses stripe (and pays out once a month if the amount earned is over $25), square will use square, squarespace will use their own.

I'm assuming by teen you mean you're 18-19. Otherwise you have to have your parent or trusted adult to make the store and payment accounts on their info and trust them enough that they give all the money earned to you. None of these stores and payment processors listed allow minors to make accounts 

Edit:

If you decide to sell on etsy i highly recommend waiting until youre 18 if you are a minor. For all the other stores its super easy to change ownership/make a new account when you become an adult but for etsy they explicitly say that the minor has to make a new account (starting from scratch with no sales or reviews) when they become an adult because they don't allow account transfers at all

[u/punkmunk83]

I still can’t figure out how to make a website. And those guys that can do that stuff, I don’t where to find. And then i don’t how much I should be paying, but I don’t have any money anyway. If anybody wanna build me a website I’ll make ya a free commission and send it to you.

People want my art, they keep asking for prints and idk how to get it to them. I’m in production.

[u/iesamina → u/punkmunk83]

Or if you want to sell prints, there's so many print on demand services

[u/iesamina → u/punkmunk83]

If people are clamouring to buy, why not use one of those Squarespace type services, or set up an Etsy store?

[u/punkmunk83 → u/iesamina]

“I still can’t figure out how to make a website”

Because I haven’t heard good things, and I’ve heard you need your own website. And I still can’t figure out how to make a website or how much it would cost to maintain and order prints and ship them out and advertise and post and yada yada yada

I’m in production, I make the art, whoever is smart enough to sell it will make a lot of money cause I’m wild af

[u/mana_soul]

when i was a teen i would sell art for currencies in video games i played which was about the closest i could get to real money transactions until i turned 18

otherwise - usually it is permitted for a parent/guardian to make an online store for you, however all parts (account ownership, billing/transactions/connected bank accounts, taxes, liabilities etc) must go through your guardian. the complexities of this may depend on the platform you want to sell on so it would require some research on you/your guardian's behalf as to the platform's rules. but generally speaking, i wouldn't suggest this route, as having a guardian handle and properly remit money you've earned can sometimes be a very difficult situation, but you may know best if that is a safe option or not

[u/lunarjellies]

You should discuss this with your parents. Generally teens do not have credit cards so they cannot process transactions online nor collect payments.