A Retailer’s Struggle to Survive a Post-Wayfair Sales Tax World

Halstead, an online wholesaler of beads and other materials for jewelry artists, considered closing. For good.

The culprit: It was struggling to keep up with rising costs for collecting and remitting remote sales tax under the new laws that had popped up in dozens of states where its customers are located.

“We are being picked apart by 45 separate state governments,” said Hilary Halstead Scott, president of the Prescott, Ariz.-based company, which does 95 percent of its business in other states. “The situation gets worse every day.”

That murky situation was triggered by the Supreme Court’s seminal South Dakota ...