Comment by ohhlx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ohhlx | Hacker News Reader

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How does this level the field between brick & mortar and online business?

I manage operations for a small brand that operates both as an online business (recent venture) and brick & mortar (2 stores, 2 different states). It seems that this would help us by taxing us more and increasing our IT costs in terms of implementation? If you are operating a small business (retailers,service provider) in this day and age - it is almost a necessity to have some online presence.

With the existence of simple ecommerce tools like shopify and bigcommerce at the hands of traditional businesses making entry simple - added restrictions may deter these brick & mortar businesses from entering the online space at all.

If goods are taxed more businesses raise their prices. Businesses aren't being taxed. Consumers are. The only cost businesses have to pay is the cost of implementing the system, which is a fixed cost that you'll pay off over time.

Also, you're kindof proving my point by stating that these new policies may deter brick & mortar businesses from entering the online space. A brick & mortar business by definition doesn't have an e-commerce presence. Ones that do have a hybrid business model. For those, there's an interesting dynamic that management will face that's a close reflection of what the greater market will have to deal with, i.e., which side of the business to invest in. But anyways, if you admit that brick & mortar businesses will be deterred from moving to e-commerce, then you're admitting that the brick & mortal model is more competitive under the new tax regime.

> If goods are taxed more businesses raise their prices. Businesses aren't being taxed. Consumers are.

This is entirely dependent on which part of the supply chain has the fiercest competition. Sometimes consumers get the economic profit and pay cost (commodities) and sometimes the producers do (monopolies, who already charge what the market will bear)

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