Do you want to save time and money to run your remote business? But you feel stuck with the big problems that come along with a business and don't know where to start, specific to being a remote startup? Check out how a virtual mailbox can solve some of the issues you’re running into.

How a Virtual Mailbox Can Help Solve Remote Business Problems

As a remote business startup here’s a list of the most common problems that many others like you are running into. The problems range from not having a physical location, saving time, looking professional, and how to set up your Amazon store.

1. You need a permanent address because you don't have a physical location

One of the best parts of running a remote business is the fact that you can run your business from anywhere in the world, whether it is in your comfy pajamas at home or in another country.

However, unlike you, who can change countries and addresses constantly, your business must maintain a permanent address. Imagine how many times you move and travel in a year, and having to change your business address that many times too, such a pain! A virtual mailbox can help with this exact issue.

With a virtual mailbox, you can get a real street address attached to a commercial office building. This business address can be used for all of your business correspondence, including registering your business, advertising your products/services, and receiving business mail. Best of all because your virtual mailbox is attached to a commercial office, it’s truly permanent and you’ll never have to change your address again. Travel and run your business freely while staying connected.

2. You need a separate permanent address because you don't want to use your home address due to privacy concerns

Your business address is one of the first things that will pop up when your customers search your business. It’s a good sign if people are Google searching your business because that means you’re generating interest. However, it’s not so great if the address that is posted for the entire public to see is your home address. For example, if your website gets 2 million visitors, that’s 2 million people knowing where you live! Yikes!

If you do use your home address, you’re inviting strangers and potential threats, such as hackers or other malicious individuals, to your house online and offline. That’s too much risk and personal exposure. No one wants unwelcome visitors peeping into their home and private information, so how do you get cushion between your customers and your home address?

A virtual mailbox, which can provide you with a separate permanent address for your business to protect your privacy, so you don’t have to worry about your home address being exposed to public records for prying eyes to access. It gives you the barrier you want for people knowing your business location, but not knowing your home address.

3. You need a professional business image because you don't want to use your home address

Professionalism is key when it comes to earning the trust of your potential clients or customers. Remember the privacy concerns from point #2? Adding to not only the risk of your home address, but if someone sees that your business is attached to a home address, you may lose credibility and risk losing new customers.

The saying “don’t judge a book by its cover” doesn’t apply when it comes to people spending their money. They will make sure they can trust the business before making any buying decisions, and your business address can make a big difference there. Would you pay $100-$200 to a business with a home address?

Instead, by using a virtual mailbox your business address will look more professional and look like the following format:

My New Startup

1400 Market St #100

Las Vegas, NV 00000

Lucky for you, VPM can provide you with real street addresses attached to a commercial office building. When you use this address for your business address, your potential customers will not have a shred of doubt in their minds about the professionalism of your company and will be much more confident in the products/services that you are offering.

4. You need to expand your business because a home address only goes so far

It’s an exciting time when you’ve reached a point where you need to expand your business. That means your success is taking off! There are many hubs around the country you can establish a new location for your business and access a new market. However, expansions aren’t that easy. For each new location you expand to, you will be required by the state to have a local address for your business.

Believe it or not, virtual mailboxes can also help you with this dilemma. Do some research prior to finalizing your decision on which location you would like to expand your business to, and check to see if a virtual mailbox offers locations in that area. If so, you can receive a physical street address in the designated state of your choice and keep the success rolling!

VPM owns and operates all of its locations, meaning that there are no third-party partners. Translation: your mail and packages go through fewer touch points, and the delivery time is faster for you. Plus, because VPM owns and operates all of its locations, you’ll reduce your mail loss and damage. VPM offers virtual mailbox support in California, Nevada, and Delaware.

5. You need a physical street address because you can't use a PO box to register your LLC

You may not want to hear this, but in many states, you are not allowed to use a PO box as your business address. PO boxes are often not recognized as a real physical street address, which is a requirement for business addresses. This means that you won’t be able to register your LLC using a PO box address.

We know that it feels like your options are limited for what you can use for your business address since your home address and PO boxes are off the table.

But guess what? You can use a virtual mailbox to provide you with a flexible and affordable option to obtain a business address that is a physical street address to register your LLC. Use a virtual mailbox without needing to spend steep amounts of money on physical office rent or spend your money on a virtual office that’s only needed occasionally.

Save yourself the money because virtual mailboxes protect your privacy, look professional, and it’s accepted to register your LLC.

6. You want a more secure way to manage your business online for record-keeping, client records, and the way you organize all legal and business documentation for yearly audits and taxes

When tax season rolls around or it’s time for you to analyze your quarterly reports, the last thing you want is for all of your records to be in disarray. It could take hours, days, or weeks to compile and organize all of your important documents and files. You might even lose physical copies of what you need.

One of the benefits of having a virtual mailbox is that it makes it easy to organize all of your files in a digital format. VirtualPostMail (VPM) uses search technology that scans your mail, saves it as a PDF, and makes your files searchable by a keyword search, meaning you just need a word to save days of time for one document from 5 years ago.

Remember that physical address mentioned above? You can use that as your mailing address to receive all of your mail and packages, which you can have all your important business and legal mail scanned and forwarded to you in a digital format, much like email. With all of your mail correspondence digitized, you can organize it in a way that makes sense to you and search through files to find the documents you need when the time comes. Also, trash and archive any documents in between so you can get only what matters most in one place.

7. You need an address to open your Amazon store

As an Amazon store, you will need an address to set up your seller account. You already know that it’s not a good idea to use your home address, as indicated by #2, so what are your options? You could use a PO box, but here’s why you shouldn’t:

As an Amazon store, you will need to be able to send and receive packages constantly. PO boxes come with severe package limitations. Since they technically do not receive packages from UPS and other major shipping companies, your Amazon store packages, like returns and removals, may be rejected by your post office. If your PO box is overfilled you’ll have packages that maybe taken. Your PO box might not accept specific items too such as electronics and that might be your business. Then, you’re out of luck.

So, what can you use instead? A virtual mailbox. With VPM, you’ll get mail from ALL couriers such as USPS, FedEx, and UPS and is accepted in more places than a PO Box address.

Additionally, adding to your Amazon store problems most banks, suppliers, and service providers do not accept a PO box as your official address. This means that you will have to use a different address from your PO box to deal with important aspects of your business. If your mailing address is a PO box, Amazon might recognize the unacceptable address and suspend your account. You don’t want to jeopardize your shop like that too.

VPM offers a service called TruLease that provides you with a physical address to open US business bank accounts. When it comes to opening an Amazon Store, Amazon is going to ask you for proof of address (i.e. lease agreement) as well as a utility bill to ensure that you have a true physical business address.

8. You need an address for your Shopify store

You’ll need an address to use with various merchant and payment accounts, like PayPal. Plus, you’ll need a return or shipping address for packages with your Shopify store. An address on the Contact Us page and across your store is a must too. In summary, your Shopify store needs an address.

Can you use any address for your Shopify store? The quick answer is no you can’t use any address.

Shopify stores do not accept a PO box as a return address. It's best to not use your home address for your Shopify store because anyone and everyone browsing your shop will have access to your personal information and might even show up in person to your house. So what address can you use?

You can use a virtual mailbox! As this article has previously stated, a VPM virtual mailbox is a real street address (not a PO box) attached to a commercial office. It provides you with a separate physical address from your home address that can receive all mail and packages that are sent to you. You can then safely have your packages forwarded to where you live without the worry of knowing random shoppers or strangers have access to your home address. Sell like crazy without giving shoppers a free look at your home address!

Ready For Your Virtual Mailbox?

If you have dealt with any of the remote business problems listed above, then a virtual mailbox is what you need.